This book is a historical and interpretive study of the movement of jazz experimentalism in West and East Germany between the years 1950 and 1975. It complicates the narratives advanced by previous scholars by arguing that engagement with black musical methods, concepts, and practices remained significant for the emergence of the German jazz experimentalism movement. In a seemingly paradoxical fashion, this engagement with black musical knowledge enabled the formation of more self-reliant musical concepts and practices. Rather than viewing the German jazz experimentalism movement in terms of dissociation from their African American spiritual fathers, this book presents the movement as having decisively contributed to the decentering of still prevalent jazz historiographies in which the centrality of the US is usually presupposed. Going beyond both US-centric and Eurocentric perspectives, this study contributes to scholarship that accounts for jazz’s global dimension and the transfer of ideas beyond nationally conceived spaces. "Few studies have understood how improvised music functions as a complex ecosystem, indeed an interlocking one that overlaps and exchanges with other like ecosystems, not just musical ones, but artistic, political, and social ones as well. Perhaps only George Lewis’s A Power Stronger Than Itself and Kevin Whitehead’s New Dutch Swing have managed to capture the intricacies of free music – or what Lewis has termed “experimentalism” – in this way, with the depth and feeling that it deserves. "Harald Kisiedu’s magnificent European Echoes: Jazz Experimentalism in Germany, 1950-75 joins the ranks of these groundbreaking books, adding indispensable substance to the current scholarship. Basing his argument on meticulous primary research that includes many unknown or under-discussed details, Kisiedu moves deftly between biography, history and analysis, ultimately depicting improvised music in Germany as part of a continuum with African American jazz, rather than falling into line with received knowledge, which has tended to treat it as a major break – an “emancipation,” to use the problematic language often deployed – from its precursors and contemporaries in the United States. This allows Kisiedu to investigate the complexities of race, in particular, in the emergent new music of both West and East Germany, but also to evaluate the specificity of German improvised music, its relationships to Fluxus and its place in relation to new art and contemporary composed music in Europe, and the political and social contexts of the divided country in which it all emerged. Along the way, Kisiedu provides the most detailed biographical portraits of his principal subjects – Peter Brötzmann, Alex Schlippenbach, Manfred Schoof, and Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky – yet published in English, and the book includes an important trove of newly discovered and previously unpublished photographs.“   John Corbett, Chicago, author of „A Listener’s Guide to Free Improvisation“ "Harald Kisiedu’s groundbreaking interdisciplinary study trenchantly illuminates how during the Cold War and after, first-generation German and Swiss experimental musicians challenged national, political, conceptual, and racial borders to produce cosmopolitan new forms and practices of free improvisation. Kisiedu brings the study of improvised music together with German studies, critical race theory, and political science to produce a rigorous yet intimate portrait of the musical, cultural, and personal relationships among highly innovative musicians who shaped a new future of music.“  George E. Lewis, author of „A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music“

This is a record of halves.Angela Seo sings on half of the record. Jamie Stewart sings on half of the record.  Half of the songs are experimental industrial. Half of the songs are experimental modern classical.Half of it is real. Half of it is imaginary.The real songs attempt to turn the worst life has offered to five people the band is connected with into some kind of desperate shape that does something, anything, other than grind and brutalize their hearts and memory within these stunningly horrendous experiences. The imaginary songs are an expansion and abstract exploration of the early rock and roll “Teen Tragedy” genre as jumping off point to decontaminate the band’s own overwhelming emotions in knowing and living with what has happened to these five people.What none of this record does and despite the oft repeated assertion, what Xiu Xiu has never done, is attempt to superficially shock the listener. Instead, Xiu Xiu has spent twenty years grappling with how to process, to be empathetic towards, to disobey and to reorganize horror; there is no other word for it other than horror. The motivation for writing Ignore Grief to be about a child who was sold into prostitution by his mother, a junior high student who was kidnapped and murdered, incessantly choosing alcohol and cocaine over one’s family, becoming lost in the bleakest, darkest aspects of cultish spirituality and committing suicide as means to escape and protest a life of violent sex work is because the members of Xiu Xiu themselves are deeply shocked.Old friend and new member David Kendrick (Sparks, Devo, Gleaming Spires) joins Angela Seo and Jamie Stewart through whatever this may be and whatever it may mean and why ever it may have occurred. The point of aesthetic examination is to see if there is any way to come out the other side or if there is even any reason. In either case there may not be but to simply turn away would be yet a further act of destruction. “I had now lost all confidence in myself, doubted all men immeasurably, and abandoned all hopes for the things of this world, all joy, all sympathy, eternally. This was the truly decisive incident of my life. I had been split through the forehead between the eyebrows, a wound that was to throb with pain whenever I came into contact with a human being.”

The 5th Sublime Frequencies volume in Laurent Jeanneau’s amazing documentation of vanishing indigenous music of the rural Asian frontiers, this CD focuses on ethnic minority groups of Southern China. Presented here are 17 tracks of supremely infectious vocals and folkloric instrumentals played on a wide variety of local traditional instruments. The centerpiece of this collection is the 13 minute Do Djui Atsei (track 5), an absolutely epic male and female group choral vocal piece which is improvised as a song of intimate personal emotions that brings tears to the performers as they are singing together. Jeanneau has spent many years traversing the hills and valleys of Southeast Asia and China, and he has captured a dizzying array of folk music, much of which has never been documented before. He is perhaps the most committed and accomplished procurer of rare and threatened music from the region and seems more focused than ever as he states in his liner notes for this release: “In China, by the end of the 1950s, 400 ethnic groups registered to be counted in the census. There might be 300 remaining groups nowadays. I was facing an incredible amount of potential musicians. Now after 6 years spent in Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, I have recorded 55 CDs of raw stuff. This Sublime Frequencies product is a compilation from those CDs, displaying the diversity I was able to find between 2006 and 2012, and I’m not finished....”

Senyawa are a contemporary duo originating from Jogjakarta, Indonesia. Rully Shabara (extreme vocals) coupled with Wukir Suryadi's deft instrumentals (and homemade instruments) produce one of the most profound examples of experimental via traditional music happening anywhere today. By weaving Indonesian folkloric moods with various shades of modern genre hybrids, Senyawa has been navigating unexplored musical terrain for more than a decade. Sujudtheir premier release on the Sublime Frequencies label, is the latest chapter of this very special and singular sound of the past, present, and future. The basic theme of the record can be summed up with one extremely powerful Bahasa Indonesian word, "tanah", which translates to "soil-ground-land-earth". Shabara's vocals are an expressive force, conjuring spirits from the soil with a deep humility and respect for the land and their existence in the universe. Suryadi has built a new guitar for these tracks and pushes the Senyawa sound into new territory, utilizing delay, loops, and other effects creating grounded backdrops of folk metal, punk attitudinal, and droning earthscapes - providing Shabara the perfect context to explore his whispering poetry and jagged, sharp-as-a-kris animistic powers. There is simply no other sound like it and Sublime Frequencies is thrilled to present this new direction in their discography.

Paperback, 48pp Spiral House, 2025 Portals SeriesHuman history is filled with unacceptable sounds: high-pitched voices, gossip, talkativeness, hysteria, wailing and ritual shouts. Who makes them? Those deviant from or deficient in the masculine ideal of self-control: women, catamites, eunuchs and androgynes all fall into this category.  From the myths of antiquity to Margaret Thatcher via Sigmund Freud and Gertrude Stein, The Gender of Sound charts the gendering of sound in Western culture. Carson invites us to listen again, and in doing so to reimagine our conceptions of human order, virtue and selfhood. Putting a door on the female mouth has been an important project of patriarchal culture from antiquity to the present day. Its chief tactic is an ideological association of female sound with monstrosity, disorder and death.

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

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

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

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

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

"Vibrating the piano’s strings and manipulating the soundboard, Agnel spends a good portion of the live concert as often inside the instrument as on the keyboard. Moving from cord-strumming and  outside wood raps, backed by ratcheting bass string scrapes, irregular drum ruffs and gong resonation, she creates a dynamic introduction backed by irregular drum ruffs and below-the-bridge double bass rubs. “Part 2” captures the heart of the matter as Agnel’s opposite end keyboard slides emphasize both gentle plinks and pedal point thickness with the repeated and nearly identical patterns often interrupted by glissandi and string reverb. Meantime Edwards’ buzzing arco stops and Noble’s sharp cymbal cracks follow a parallel line. Occasionally there are brief Edwards-Agnel duets involving elevated keyboard emphasis and low-pitched string abrasions. But her piano command is such that elsewhere she creates call-and-response between her own strings and keys from opposite edges of the keyboard. A mid-track silent interlude leads to rhythm section intensification with Noble’s door-stopper-like reverberations and chain rattles making more of a impression than Edwards’ constant string swabbing. Meantime Agnel’s processional strokes and stopped piano keys preserve the exposition until she winnows the narrative down to isolated single note stabs. Double bass string shakes and drum hand patting similarly descend until the pianist’s key slapping signal the finale. A terse encore allows a patina of swing to peek through the otherwise bumping variations from all as a final cymbal splash marks the concert end." - Ken Waxman https://www.jazzword.com/ Sophie Agnel plays the whole piano. Its body matters as much as its strings. The keyboard's lid is just as good closed as it is open - in fact it’s best slammed open and closed rapidly. Joined by bassist John Edwards and drummer Steve Noble, Three on a Match explodes the piano trio - each player sparking off the other so quickly that it’s impossible to figure out who lit the flame.  Recorded at OTO in 2023, this was the second two night residency for a trio that has fast become one of our favourite improvising groups. Each individually brilliant, Agnel, Edwards and Noble’s enduring connection is in their seriously playful approach to their instrument - in their way of looking at it as a whole and then tearing it apart, breaking it down into its raw materials - wood, brass, steel.  Born in Paris in the 60’s and playing her parents piano as soon as she could stand up, Agnel is classically trained and had a turn in modern jazz. What frustrated her was the strange disconnect between the frame of the piano and its keyboard - a weird boundary that seemed to form some hushed code of etiquette. “The first thing I put inside the piano was a plastic goblet. I’d seen a few pianists do it: Fred Van Hove, for example, put rubber balls inside his. But what didn’t appeal to me was that there seemed to be no link between the piano’s outside and inside.” If you see Agnel play now, the body of her piano is littered with fish tins, ping pong balls, wooden blocks - not that you’d recognize their sounds. Steve Noble surrounds his drum kit with whistles, tubes and towels alongside gleaming brass cymbals and gongs. Their stage is a heady mix of high and low - the grand piano and the gong alongside rubber balls and tiny bells; players half stood up, reaching in, bending toward - relentlessly working their instrument to unburden its sound from genre.  Free improvisation is always a leap of faith, a test of commitment, and these three players are completely unafraid. The music switches deftly from super taut string manipulation to extremely loud percussive collisions. The trio can play microscopic mutations on a bass note and then scale up on the turn of a pin to plunge into huge, black chords and ricocheting sonority - dissolving the boundary between body and sound. The crescendo of Part Two is shaped by such cumulative repetition that it feels like a confrontation - a controlled test for breaking point. What happens if we keep going?   As so we left Part Three as the last encore of the residency. It’s a totally exhilarating, skittering reprise - short and energetic - delivered with the kind of grounded abandon you hope to see improvisers play with but rarely do.

Available as a 320kbps MP3 or 24bit FLAC or WAV. Edition of 300 standard LPs, 100 LPs with screenprinted artwork inserts and 200 CDs 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.

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

Ghanaian sculptor, inventor, and avant-garde multi-instrumentalist Nii Noi Nortey performs solo and in trio with Mark Sanders and David Panton. Nii Noi’s solo soundscapes a vivid journey through West Africa using traditional instruments, before adding his own adaptions and afrifon inventions in the trio. Although this is the first time Nii Noi and David have improvised with Mark the trio immediately find an unerring natural groove that moves effortlessly through free-improvisation, free-jazz, world music and African inspired melodic and percussive patterns.   ---Nii Noi Nortey / nu waterpipe, atenteben flute, gonje fiddle, algaita oboe, ngoni harp/lute, afrifon reedsDavid Panton /  piano (keyboard & strings), soprano saxophone, bagpipe (without drones)Mark Sanders / drums, percussion---Recorded on Sunday 3rd January 2016 by Shaun Crook. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn.An edited version of a separate recording made by Panton Music of this performance is scheduled for release in June 2016 on disc as PM3116 Nii Noi Nortey with David Panton & Mark Sanders. See details on the Panton Music website

An invigorating, deeply interwoven recording from the pairing of Glasgow-born, London-based musician, Conal Blake and percussionist, improviser and sound artist, Regan Bowering. Having collaborated in a trio alongside musician and computer programmer Li Song since 2022, this was their first duo performance, recorded at OTO in January 2025 on a bill alongside Beachers and picoFarad. For this set the pair combined microphone feedback with acoustic percussion - augmented with a delay pedal - where the mics picked up the acoustic, tactile percussive gestures and used them to generate more feedback, which in turn resonated the drums. The result is a highly present, deeply symbiotic setup, whereby Blake and Bowering react to one another, but also the equipment itself, with the resulting strands building to something as densely intertwined as a Piranesi etching. Over the set's 21 minute runtime, Blake crafts woozy squalls of feedback, ranging from shrill, questioning tones to ragged, guttural growls, with a highly tactile grasp of the timbral possibilities of the set-up. Alongside this (within, under, over, through), Bowering's clipped percussive ricochets and sharply curtailed rolls spill into an intricate approach that delves deeply into the sonic possibilities of the kit; coaxing new textures and forms from the feedback loops, that in turn galvanise the entire sound palette into new territories. With such a synergetic sound and interplay, it's perhaps pointless to home in on the component parts too closely, though. Whatever the source, the sound that the duo create is curious, enthralling and fully alive. --  Recorded, mixed and mastered by Billy Steiger

Live recording of the debut OTO performance from Basque guitarist, Joseba Irazoki, recorded at OTO in April 2025. From the first ragged, stuttering bursts of ’1920’, Irazoki sets the tone, with pure guitar tones spiralling out of the swells of clipped distortion, before clusters of shimmering notes life themselves out of the fuzz. The opener is just the first of many cuts from Irazoki's 2024 Otoroku release, Gitarra Lekeitioak (Onomatopeikoa II), that feature over the set’s 36 minute runtime; from the swooping, elegiac lullaby refrains of ‘E’ to the intricate, stop-start tangles of 'OAM'; from the driving, inexorable riffs of '3KO', to the wandering, contemplative patterns of 'Cheshire Hotel', and more. The live versions of these tracks are instantly recognisable to anybody who's listened to the album, but there is a rawness and vitality here that make them all the more immediate. As with the album, there's a remarkable range on show here; dense slabs of distorted tones and hissing static rub shoulders with featherlight arpeggios and crystalline chords, all run through with beautifully circuitous melodies and incredibly dextrous fingerwork. As the last jagged whirls of notes of the set fade away there’s a charged pause before the applause from an audience clearly aware that they’ve just witnessed something very special indeed. -- Recorded by Mike WinshipMixed by Oli BarrettCover photo by Manu San Martín.

Something stark and wonderful for our first live release of 2023. [something’s happening] is the sound and text duo of poet and performer Iris Colomb and composer Daryl Worthington (Beachers), exploring textual and sonic permutation through improvisation. Iris Colomb conjures the evocative atmosphere of a dream half-recalled, voicing fragments of found text that subtly build and layer, repeating and circling back around before branching off into new images and meanings. Alongside her, Daryl Worthington utilises all manner of sound-making devices from guitar and bells to tapes, toothbrushes and other objects. But there is never any sense of overload, more of having the right palette for Colomb's hypnagogic word patterns; letting the sonic focus gradually shift with a light touch combined with audible attentiveness. This is a music that takes its time, letting each moment unfurl with care and space. In the wrong hands, such an approach could prove overly deliberate, keeping the listener at arm's length. Instead there's an unselfconscious intimacy that feels like eavesdropping onto a hidden little corner of the world that you previously had no idea existed. The current, ongoing process hinted at in the group's name is no accident; you get the sense that this soundworld was unfolding long before you got there and will continue long after you left. What a privilege to have captured this fleeting glimpse in the meantime. -- Iris Colomb / voice, effectsDaryl Worthington / guitar, electronics, bells, electric toothbrush, tape walkman and other objects -- Recorded by kyle acabMixed and mastered by Oli Barrett Cover photo by Peter Döpper Thanks to Anthony Chalmers and Em Lodge from Baba Yaga's Hut

Gloriously psychoactive set from Joke Lanz (turntable) and Ute Wassermann (voice + objects), recorded as part of a stellar line-up alongside Charmaine Lee and Jackson Burton at OTO in May 2025. From the outset, there's a real sense of playfulness here, but the technical skill on display from both artists here is truly jaw dropping. They both wear it lightly though, allowing the listener to sit back and bask in the generosity of a rare gift, freely given. Ute's voice covers a scarcely believable range, not so much speaking in tongues as channeling an entire other realm. Guttural growls and avian trills mix with half-swallowed breaths and Clangerish whistles; gulps and gasps and overtones spin around each other, all interspersed with a whole array of bird whistles, noisemakers and found objects. Through Ute's vocalisations, Joke weaves snatches and snippets of sound from the turntables, crafting a surreal, absurdist collage of orchestras and oratorios, clattering percussion and stammering preachers, low brass and penny whistles and much, much more. Both artists move with a remarkable dexterity, and, even more than this, a vitality, a sense of always being fully in the moment, even if that moment is restlessly hurtling ever forward at several hundred miles an hour. There's such an uncanny symbiosis to the duo's interactions - clearly hard-earned - that it's genuinely hard in some places to tell which sound is coming from which performer, or how such a intricate, multilayered sounds could be coming from just two performers at all. All of this races along at a breakneck pace, barely ever giving the audience time to settle. But why would you want to? The sonic landscape keeps flashing by in an ever-brilliant sugar-rush of kaleidoscopic colour, and it's no hardship at all to just give yourself over to it. -- Recorded by Rory SalterMixed and mastered by Oli Barrett

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

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

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

100% heavy black cotton canvas10oz / 283gsm canvas420mm x 370mm x 110mm / 16.5in x 14.5in x 4.3inLong Handles: 600mm / 24inRestocked ! Very special OTO tote, designed by Adam Bohman and screenprinted onto a heavyweight canvas. Edition of 200.

Limited run of 100 very special Adam Bohman designed tea towels - perfect for serving dinner and managing spillages.  8oz heavyweight 100% cotton tea towel w/ hanging loop. Printed in the UK.  For those ordering xmas gifts, these will arrive by the 9th December and ship 1st Class the next working day.

100% heavy cotton canvas10oz / 283gsm canvas420mm x 370mm x 110mm / 16.5in x 14.5in x 4.3inLong Handles: 600mm / 24inVery special OTO tote, designed by Adam Bohman and screenprinted onto a heavyweight canvas. Available in natural or black & white. Edition of 200.

One of the greatest, heaviest, and most sought-after guitar records from 1970s West Africa, available on vinyl for the first time in over a decade!!!Bamako, Mali, 1973: Rail Band, the official orchestra of the Malian state railway, drops their self-titled LP. It’s a relentlessly soulful and hypnotic blend of American funk, jazz horns, and Afro-Cuban music, reflected through centuries-old Mandé tradition and blasted at top volume by some of the continent’s greatest artists.Led by legendary trumpet and saxman Tidiani Koné and held aloft by the intricate web of Djelimady Tounkara’s rumbling, reverb-soaked guitar, Rail Band’s sprawling compositions embody West African storytelling traditions while exulting in the technology and modernity of a newly independent Mali. Vocalists Salif Keita and Mory Kanté, two heroes of African music who would achieve global fame as soloists, are endlessly emotive, oscillating between silky ballads and funk screams. The band’s sound is filled out by layers of percussion, rolling guitars, and melodic horns filtered through the Caribbean. Starting in 1970, Rail Band played five nights a week, from 2 pm til the early hours, at the Buffet Hotel de la Gare. Their audience was an international array of businessmen, young partiers, and people of the Bamako night. The band was incredibly versatile, switching genres, rhythms, and styles to meet their crowd. It was a volatile mix, one that would fall apart soon after these recordings were made, with Salif Keita’s departure to start the rival Les Ambassadeurs. Though Rail Band continued in many distinguished forms, the eight songs on this album reveal one of the greatest bands to ever exist, at the height of their creative powers.On “Duga,” a composition dating back to the 13th century and passed on through oral tradition by the jelis (griots), the Rail Band replaces balafon with the interplay of Cheick Tidiane’s speaker-rattling bass and Alfred Coulibaly’s tasteful organ. “Marabayasa,” with its iconic sax intro and Mory Kanté channeling James Brown, is a deep-cut favorite of DJs around the world. Part of a long and regal lineage of Malian guitar orchestras initially tasked with translating the region’s traditional music to modern instrumentation, Rail Band morphed and reenvisioned those traditions with a style and energy that has never been matched.High-quality black or translucent blue vinyl (limited to first pressing), old school jacket faithfully reproducing the iconic “mermaid” design from the 1973 release. Licensed from Syllart Records and Djelimady Tounkara.

10 brilliant tracks from 1960’s Sierra Leone by the wildly popular S.E. Rogie! S.E. Rogie went from running a tailor shop in Sierra Leone to being one of West Africa's most popular artists. He toured around the country, singing his palm wine music in multiple local languages, created his own record label, and was known as the most handsome man in Sierra Leone. He formed the highlife band The Morningstars in 1965. In 1973, he came to the Bay Area to live and expand his base, performing everywhere from local high schools and convalescent homes to festivals and large stages. In his later life he hit the road again and toured the world, eventually passing away while on stage in Russia in 1994.He shared the following songwriting wisdom with his son, Rogee Rogers: “When you write a song, you can be complicated if you want, but your chorus should be that anybody can sing it.”These tracks were originally released on his own Rogie label in the 1960s and include solo, ensemble, and Morningstars songs, most of which have never been reissued until now.

Assiko Golden Band de Grand Yoff is the sprawling drum collective tearing up Dakar’s nightlife scene. Senegalese poet Djiby Ly (Wau Wau Collectif) is backed by fourteen different percussive instruments plus horns, winds, balafon, and the occasional accordion, combining Count Ossie’s spiritually elevated polyrhythms with Fela Kuti’s orchestra and Tony Allen’s groove.Based in the impoverished neighborhood of Grand Yoff and operating as a mutual aid group for the larger community, the band builds its songs on ancient rhythms passed on from Senegal, Cameroon, and the infamous Gorée Island. In both Wolof and French, Djiby preaches a message of uplift and cooperation rooted in the Sufi teachings of the Mouride Brotherhood, as well as Christianity and animist religions. “Senegal, my life my joy” is the call and response chanted over cascading, infinitely layered drum patterns on opener “La Musique Du Cœur.” “We build our own country” the band proclaims in Wolof on “Xarritt.”For twenty years and across three generations of band members, Assiko have played raucous all-night jams at weddings, secret parties, and political rallies. Grainy cellphone footage of their live shows has spread online. But this is their first album, the result of a collaboration with Swedish musician and archivist Karl-Jonas Winqvist (Sing A Song Fighter), who met the band in Dakar in 2018 and facilitated recording sessions and overdubs via Whatsapp (no small feat with so many musicians). This is vital, exciting, and innovative music, alive with energy and purpose, a band rooted in a very specific community but speaking to the world.

Hampus Lindwall is a musical artist active in many fields ranging from contemporary music to experimental and electronic sound / music. He has released many albums, as a soloist and in collaboration and is the titular organist in Saint-Esprit, Paris, since 2005.::::::​​As 2024 came to a close, in New York and Paris chords rang out from thirty-two-foot pipes for the first time in half a decade. Following twin fires in 2019, the grand organs at the cathedrals of St John the Divine and Notre-Dame, amongst the largest instruments in their respective countries, had finally been restored. The news was justly celebrated in the international press, but the incidents were far from isolated. In England, the city of Norwich hailed the return of its cathedral’s five manual organ in 2023 and just two years earlier York Minster heralded a “once-in-a-century” refurbishment of its own 5,000-plus pipe instrument. Meanwhile, further organ restoration projects are ongoing at churches in Liverpool, Bradford, Bristol, Winchester, and Washington DC. Significant as they are to their respective communities, they’re also emblematic of a wider rebirth for one of humanity’s oldest musical instruments. The organ is having a moment. Over the last few years, albums by the likes of Kali Malone, Ellen Arkbro, Anna von Hausswolff, FUJI|||||||||||TA, and Áine O’Dwyer, as well as projects in the visual arts by Sollmann Sprenger, Cory Arcangel, Massimo Bartolini and many other talented artists, have given a new prominence to the old ecclesiastical stalwart. The pipe organ bears historical traces which stretch back to the third century BC. But that doesn't mean it can't speak to a contemporary moment haunted by algorithms and networked culture. Hampus Lindwall’s Brace for Impact is an album of organ music for today.Things nearly turned out very differently for Lindwall. Were it not for a simple twist of fate, the guy now occupying the organist’s chair at the church of Saint-Esprit in Paris, occasional collaborator with Phill Niblock, Leif Elggren and Susana Santos Silva among many others, might well have wound up in the world of pop music. In the 1990s, as the Stockholm club scene started taking off, Lindwall found himself moving in the same circles as the electronic music artists connected to the city’s legendary Cheiron studios. The aesthetics of 90s rave remains an important part of his musical DNA to this day. Born in the Swedish capital in 1976, Lindwall learned his chops copying the solos on Steve Vai records. It was only later, towards the end of his teens, that he even started playing keyboard instruments. When seeking to enter Stockholm’s prestigious Royal College of Music, Lindwall tendered two applications: to the jazz department, as a guitarist, and to the classical music department, as an organist. He was sure he would be accepted with the guitar. In the end, he was rejected from the jazz department for spurious reasons, inadvertently setting Lindwall on a path to becoming a classical organist.Brace for Impact sees Lindwall returning to the scene of his adolescent obsessions. It’s an album of five recent contemporary classical compositions, all performed by the composer himself on the seventy-eight stop organ at St. Antonius church in Düsseldorf. It’s also a highly visceral forty-five minutes of music with undeniable elemental power.The title track proposes a historical counterfactual equal and opposite to its author’s own youthful fortuity: what if fate had somehow barred Iannis Xenakis from becoming the pioneering architect and composer remembered by history and instead led him to join a metal band? Inspired by the searing glissando that opens the Greek musician’s seminal (1953–4) work Metastaseis, the piece pairs a series of rip-roaring slides on a highly saturated and distorted electric guitar (performed by collaborator and SUNN O))) founding member, Stephen O’Malley) with the halting attempt of Lindwall’s instrument to follow it, in spite of the discrete nature of the individual keys on its manuals. It’s an electrifying piece of music, slapping the listener round the face straight out of the gate at the start of the record. But it’s also a deft study on the uneasy relation between analogue curves and digital steps.Brace for Impact might just be the first album of post-internet organ music. Like a performance by Dutch artists JODI, it is a record weaned on networked processes and algorithmic thinking, a suite of tracks which build their own systems then push them to the point of collapse. Lindwall is not a programmer, but he will wield whatever technology is ready to hand much as Chopin made use of the richer, fuller sound of an Erard piano. From the software subtly weirding the interior textures of ‘Swerve’ and ‘Piping’ to the juddering, kernel panic of ‘AFK’ and ‘À bruit secret’, these are works of music unthinkable without the ubiquitous experience of life lived online. Imparting that hypermodern aesthetic sensibility through the austere sound of a baroque organ only heightens the anachronistic sense of temporal disjuncture characteristic of days spent rabbit-holing through ever-multiplying stacks of browser windows. The vernacular of Web 2.0 is here re-transcribed in the ornate script of a medieval illuminated manuscript.Artist and blogger Brad Troemel (aka The Jogging) once compared the practices of his own cohort of digital natives to the non-retinal strategies of Marcel Duchamp a century earlier. “Duchamp’s readymade came at a time of transition when consumers were first buying mass-produced goods,” he notes. “During Duchamp’s era, the word ‘readymade’ referred to the objects in one’s home that were not handmade. And for the generation of artists coming of age today, it is the high-volume, fast-paced endeavour of social media’s attention economy that mimics the digital economy of stock-trading, a market increasingly dominated by computer-automated algorithmic trades.” Lindwall, equally, regards the elements comprising the material for his music like so many pre-given readymades ripe to be appropriated. ‘À bruit secret’ feeds the whole fifty-six note run of the organ keyboard into a random number generator before being variously manipulated like a Schoenbergian tone row built from the standardised limits of the instrument. The use of commercial software even spurred Lindwall to name the track after Duchamp’s (1916) sculpture with an unknown rattling object inside. Starting the album with the jagged crunch of an E major guitar chord followed by an interval leap of a minor sixth up to C felt, to Lindwall, like a sort of citation – whether from Chopin or Yngwie Mamlsteen (possibly both).As a conservatoire student, Lindwall felt he had to leave his passion for guitar behind, as if there were no room for those ideas within the formality of the music establishment. Only later did he come to see it as a resource he could draw on, a deep well of subcultural knowledge to be mined, just as Bartók once excavated the folk songs of his native Hungary. Lindwall cites Jeff Koons, who once claimed he only found his voice as an artist when he started looking to the kitschy objects sold in his father’s antique shop while he was growing up. In this sense, at least, Brace for Impact may represent the organist’s oeuvre at its most arch and conceptual – but it also finds him at his most personal. This is an album borne of obsessions, with an obsessive’s attention to the details of sound and structure. It is also an absolute blast: a record of ferocious immediacy with one foot in the distant past and eyes firmly fixed upon the future.

For the first time on vinyl, Yo La Tengo’s understated, lonesome score to Kelly Reichardt’s classic “Old Joy.”Recorded in a single afternoon at Yo La Tengo’s studio in Hoboken, Old Joy is a drifting, improvisatory journey, born out of years-long friendship between the band and the film’s director. The six instrumental tracks, created in collaboration with legendary guitarist Smokey Hormel, carry that unmistakable Yo La Tengo sound, but delivered in service of another great work of art. The music, like so much of Reichardt’s film work, is low-key yet arresting, stripped down to the essentials, warm and unpretentious. The record includes two variations on the beloved “Leaving Home” theme, released for the first time on vinyl after years traveling in Yo La Tengo fan circles. This music is a balm, remarkably full of emotion despite (or maybe because of) its restraint and minimalism. Originally released on They Shoot, We Score, a CD compiling several of the band’s soundtracks, Old Joy stands as a cohesive whole here, blooming and rewarding repeat listens. Sliding reverbed guitars, muted piano and percussion, the hum of an old amp - the blurry memory of an afternoon in the studio, or a short-lived road trip through the backwoods of Oregon. Small-run, high-quality LP pressed at Smashed Plastic in Chicago, on black and transparent pink vinyl.

The first vocal album by beloved Ethiopian nun, composer, and pianist Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru - profound and deeply moving home cassette recordings made amidst political upheaval and turmoil. These are songs of wisdom, loss, mourning, and exile, sung directly into a boombox and accompanied by Emahoy’s unmistakable piano. Though written and recorded while still living at her family’s home in Addis Ababa, Emahoy sings of the heartache of leaving her beloved Ethiopia, a reflection on the 1974 revolution and ensuing Red Terror in her homeland, and a presentiment of her future exile in Jerusalem. In the 21st century, Emahoy has become known worldwide for her utterly unique melodic and rhythmic style. Commonly misinterpreted as “jazzy” or “honky tonk,” Emahoy’s music actually comes from a deep engagement with the Western classical tradition, mixed with her background in Ethiopian traditional and Orthodox music. These songs, recorded between 1977-1985, are different from anything previously released by the artist. Rich with the sound of birds outside the window, the creak of the piano bench, the thump of Emahoy’s finger on the record button, they create a sense of place, of being near the artist while she records. Emahoy’s lyrics, sung in Amharic, are poetic and heavy with the weight of exile. “When I looked out / past the clouds / I couldn’t see my country’s sky / Have I really gone so far?” she asks in “Is It Sunny or Cloudy in the Land You Live?” Her vocals are delicate and heartfelt, tracing the melodic contours of her piano on songs like “Where Is the Highway of Thought?” “Tenkou! Why Feel Sorry?,” a career highlight that closes out her self-titled Mississippi album (MRP-099), is revisited here with vocals. Originally composed for her niece, Tenkou, the lyrics clarify the song title we’ve wondered about for so many years. “Don’t cry / Childhood won’t come back / Let it go with love Emahoy dreamt of releasing this music to a larger audience before her passing in March of 2023. We are proud to release this music, in collaboration with her family, now, in what would have been her 100th year. LP comes with a 16-page booklet full-color booklet. Gold cover first edition, pressed in both black and gold vinyl editions.  All songs composed and recorded by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, Addis Ababa, 1977–1985

When words trail off at the beginning of claire rousay’s “everything perfect is already here,” ornate instrumentation is waiting to fill a void left by the breakdown of language. Yet it becomes clear as we trace rousay’s collaged sonic pathway that breakdown, of meaning and also of melody, is also a place to rest. everything perfect… is made up of two extended compositions that cycle between familiarity and unknowing. There are seemingly infinite ways to feel in response to these pieces of music, which shift tone across their languid duration, earnest like a familiar song but unbound from the emotional didacticisms of lyrical voice and pop form.rousay builds a fluid landscape around the acoustic contributions of Alex Cunningham (violin), Mari Maurice (electronics and violin), Marilu Donovan (harp), and Theodore Cale Schafer (piano), whose respective melodies weave gently in and out, sometimes steady, sometimes aching, sometimes receding altogether in deference to less overtly musical sounds. That is, percussive texture in the form of unvarnished samples and field recordings: the rattle and rustle and the stops and starts of life unfurling, voices sharing memories nearly out of reach, doors closing, wind against a microphone. Everything comes from somewhere in particular, possessing the veneer of the diaristic, but sound’s provenance is secondary here and so these details become tangled and fused. On this release I hear such details not as individual ornaments or stories but the collective architecture of the greater composition. It’s an architecture that is not quite formed and thus full of openings out to the world unfolding. “The world unfolding,” that’s a kind way of saying change, movement, loss, transformation. Things rousay here indexes, not without shards of desire or pain, still somehow what I hear is coarse peace in the in-between. These two pieces sweep you away and then bring you to earth, but which is which, anyway? Where am I now? What is different outside of me? What is different inside of me? Um. I think. everything is perfect is already here, like the answers to these questions, is loose and beautiful in surprising ways.The music guides a certain experience of the world around. In claire’s music there is this marriage—not just a pairing or juxtaposition but an interrelationship, an eventual confusion—of song/texture, narrative/abstraction, figure/ground. Everything comes from somewhere in particular but not just the voices, the field recordings, the what is being said or meant, what matters is “the where you are now.” There are so many ways of anchoring oneself in the present, some have to do with fantasy or storytelling and some with accepting what is.These two compositions find peace between these modes. They sweep you away and then bring you to earth, but which is which, anyway? Their mode of feeling is inquisitive. Where am I now? What has changed outside of me? What has changed inside of me? The music, like the answers to these questions, is loose and beautiful in surprising ways.

Shutting Down Here is a special work. Symbolically, it covers a period of thirty years, between two visits by Jim O'Rourke to the GRM, the first, as a young man fascinated by the institution and his repertoire, the second, as an accomplished musician, influential and imbued with an aura of mystery. Shutting Down Here is a piece shaped like an universe, a heterogeneous world in which collides the multiple musical facets of Jim O'Rourke: instrumental writing, field recordings, electronic textures and cybernetic becomings, dynamic spaces, harmonic spaces, silent spans . This variety of approach, strangely, does not in any way weaken the coherence of the whole and this is the talent of Jim O'Rourke, a talent, properly speaking, of composition, where all the sound elements compete and participate to stakes that exceed them and of a common destiny, that is to say of an apparition.

Unreleased material composed by Bernard Parmegiani in 1992.Lac Noir - La Serpente is part of Emmanuel Raquin-Lorenzi's Lac Noir, a composite work inspired by a serpentine female creature or 'snake woman' that he saw in Transylvania in 1976, with a total of 33 pieces using various media, 24 by himself and 9 by other artists. All the materials used in Lac Noir were gathered on the land of the snake-woman between 1990 and 1992. The first coordinated broadcast ran from June to October 2019, like a theatrical display of media.At the end of May 1992, in Provence, in his Summer studio not far from the Montagne Sainte-Victoire, Bernard Parmegiani played me the first musical moments he had worked on from the sounds he and Christian Zanési had collected in Negreni in October 1990. A few days after this listening session, on 4th June, I wrote him a letter. I didn't mean to take control of what was to become the ninth movement of his composition, but to share with him some of the resonances I had heard in what he had composed, which mingled with my dreams and memories of the Transylvanian snake-woman, and outlined possible concordances with the other pieces underway for Lac Noir.In the midst of the garish chaos of the fair and its spectacular stunts, there could spread out - still, silent eye of the cyclone - the long waters of a lake. Calm waters. Patches cool but sensitive as skin. Between the waters there flows and ripples, there shows up and dives again a snake-woman born of the still waters. A sweet, good serpent whose song - strange and melodious, sensual, yet already tinged, as if bitten by the black depths, with bitterness; that of prescience, shading it with melancholy - is her very undulation, the rings of which appear, together or in turn, the way translucent veins overlap, slither over one another in a moving braid of metamorphoses.(extracts from notes by E. Raquin-Lorenzi)

First volume of solo piano compositions, originally released in 1963, by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, finally back in print. Born to an aristocratic family in Addis Ababa in December of 1923, Emahoy spent much of her youth and young adulthood studying classical music in Europe. She returned to Ethiopia in the 40s, where the war interrupted her musical studies. In 1948 during a church service in Ethiopia, she found her faith and began years of religious training. Throughout her physical and spiritual journeys, Emahoy continued to compose for the piano. She first released this album in Germany 1963 as small private press record. The tracks reflect her own travels, seamlessly moving between Western classical and traditional Ethiopian modes, evoking Erik Satie, the orthodox liturgy, and meditative Christian music all at once. Her work is like no one else in the world, lyrical, hypnotic, full of spiritual warmth and a direct connection to the divine.

Careening through 850+ releases, from chaotic sound collage work to their eight-and-a-half-hour magnum opus, named LUX, we find out how Octa Mobius Sheffner’s career came to its end, who they think is winning the current musical ‘arms race’ and watching the Western culture eat itself from 6,000 miles away. (This edition also comes with an exclusive cassette release of Octa’s EP Rules + cloth-. This breathtaking post-industrial journey, limited to 30 cassettes, is a rare opportunity to experience Octa’s music in physical form.)   We catch up with Will Wiesenfield to find out more about the alias Baths, the new album Gut and how it’s even more shamelessly honest than everything that has come before it. After which we head to Corsica to watch him dodge theatrically between venue-rattling beats and snares.   A mainstay of the online music scene sadly passed away this year. Alan Morse Davies was a friend to many and a collaborator of a lucky few. We give space to those who knew him to remember, in hopes that more will appreciate his impact.   The aficionado of ambient balladry, Lucy Liyou, provides an insight into the music behind her truly unique sound. This edition also features analysis of the biggest releases from the past month and reviews of hidden gems, including from Ninajirachi, Twin Galaxxies and Briana Marela.  A5, staplebound, 24pp listencorp, October 2025 listencorp.co.uk

What does it mean to process field recordings from the Ukrainian war in an electronic music track? How can the sampling of an Armenian keyboard melody be read as a critique of traditional gender roles? And what does it say about voyeurism in our culture when a techno producer uses viral YouTube videos as the basic material of his compositions? A book by Norient curator and editor Hannes Liechti. Across five detailed case studies, Hannes Liechti discusses the culture and politics of musical sampling from a new perspective. Giving particular attention to the reasons behind sampling processes, Liechti’s in-depth analysis of sampling strategies by artists such as COOL FOR YOU and Lara Sarkissian shows that sampling political material, and sampling with political intentions reveals a complex net of contexts, meanings, and often deeply personal choices and creative decisions. Offering tangible tools and concepts for further exploration of sample-based music, the book illustrates the potential of popular music to tell stories about the world, and it describes the habits, thoughts, and realities of the laptop producer, one of the core actors in 21st century music-making.Softcover, full colour, 16.5 × 23.5 cm, 354pp Norient Books, Bern, Sept 2022

What happens to curatorial practices when treated as multi-voiced, pluralistic, and process-based? Politics of Curatorship: Collective and Affective Interventions asks what curatorship could be when it is freed from its elitist notions. It gathers essays, academic articles, poems, interviews, and photo essays from 33 contributors from all over the world. Together, they seek to open up the term from a linear and often single-voiced method, offering to understand curating also as a queer, non-binary, or a mundane, individual activity that includes one’s own experiences and perceptions. On the occasion of Norient’s 20th anniversary, we attempt to disentangle the term curatorship from the received definition as a mere selecting process within the creative realm.   with 33 contributions incl. short essays, comments, poems, articles, and photo essays by Monia Acciari, AGF aka poemproducer, Ailín Grad aka Aylu, Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock, Lendl Barcelos, Sandeep Bhagwati, Phila Bergmann, Thomas Burkhalter, Vivian Caccuri, Chico Dub, Daniel «duex» Fontana, Andrea Goetzke, Natalie Gravenor, Nikhila H., Rim Jasmin Irscheid, Raphael Kariuki aka DJ Raph, Steph Kretowicz, Felipe Larozza, Ari Robey-Lawrence, Sulgi Lie, Imaad Majeed, Laura Mascarenhas, Thea Reifler, Philipp Rhensius, Sergio Salazar, Rebecca Salvadori, Suvani Suri, Gisela Swaragita, Chafic Tabbara, Lucia Udvardyová, Gita Viswanath, Salomé VoegelinSoftcover, full colour, 15.5 × 23 cm, 288ppNorient Books, Bern, 2023

The second Norient book «Seismographic Sounds: Visions of a New World» introduces you to a contemporary world of distinct music, sounds and music videos. Niche Music from Johannesburg to Helsinki, Jakarta to Los Angeles that speaks of a changing geography of multi-layered modernities, far beyond old ideas of North versus South, West versus East. Edited by Theresa Beyer, Thomas Burkhalter, and Hannes Liechti   Scholars, journalists, bloggers and musicians from Bolivia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Switzerland and forty-six other countries discuss artistic expressions that may not make big headlines yet, but anticipate major changes to come. Produced in oftentimes small studios from Jakarta to La Paz, Cape Town to Helsinki, these works experiment with the new possibilities of the Internet age and illuminate new spaces beyond the confines of commercialism, propaganda, and bigotry. They foresee a changing geography of multi-layered modernities, far beyond old ideas of North versus South, West versus East. Discover this through a collage of articles, interviews, quotations, photographs and lyrics. - music and money, music an loneliness, music and war, exotica, gender, sampling-culture, post-digital pop - Punk in Bolivia and Indonesia, Electronic Music in Egypt, Underground Pop from South Africa and Nigeria, Rap in Pakistan, Serbia, Chile and Ghana, Noise Music from Israel, Seapunk and Vaporwave from the US, Post Digital Pop from the UK, Neuer Konzeptualismus, and much more. contributions by Aisha Deme, Jenny Mbaye, Wayne Marshall, Cande Sánchez Olmos, John Hutnyk, Thomas Burkhalter, Andy Bennett, Theresa Beyer, Sandeep Bhagwati, Hillegonda C. Rietveld, Ali Haider Habib, Arie Amaya-Akkermans, Martin Daughtry, Hannes Liechti, Derek Walmsley, Elijah Wald, C-drík Fermont, FrankJavCee, Florian Sievers, Percy Mabandu, Louise Gray, Nabeel Zuberi, Kimberly DaCosta Holton, Julio Mendívil, Oliver Seibt, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, Emma Dabiri, Jonathan Fischer, B Camminga, Sonja Eismann, Michael Rebhahn, Eduardo Navas, Adam Harper, and many more.edited by Theresa Beyer, Thomas Burkhalter, Hannes Liechti Softcover, 504ppNorient Books, Bern, 2015Languages: English (75%), German (24%), French, Italian (1%)

The new Norient book Home is Where the Heart Strives explores what place means in relation to music and sound. 85 contributors from 38 countries map their sonic landscapes of migration, war, queerness, and home through essays, poems, articles, artworks, photos, and songs. From a metalhead smuggling banned tapes across the Syrian border to an oasis in the mountains of Bogotá where people gather to vogue, we are looking for places where differences don’t dissolve but resonate.   with contributions by Lendl Barcelos, Bananamonkey, Basil Anliker aka Baze, Marina Benetti, Persis Bekkering, Birds WG, Penelope Braune, Thomas Burkhalter, Kadallah Burrowes, Sinatra Chumo, Juliana Cuervo, Sumangala Damodaran, Domingos, Rana Eid, Ronja Falkenbach, Faravaz Farvadin, Šejma Fere, Vera Fonseca, Chandra Frank, Sally Garama, Dennis Gupa, Rehab Hazgui, Sizo Hlope, Hitman Kaht, Umi Hsu, Ibaaku, Andra Ivănescu, Bruce Johnson, Devangana Kalita, Paul Kammies, Raphael Kariuki aka djrPH, Karun, Anahid Kassabian, Paola LaForgia, Sasha J. Langford, Lutivini Majanja, Chris McGuinness, Elia Meier, Luigi Monteanni, Zahra Motallebi, Jesse Munene, Isaac Abraham Williams aka Isaac Mutant, Natasha Narwal, Janina Neustupny, Saba Niazmand, Kai Oh, Shaahin Peymani, Vinzent Maria Preuẞ, Nazifah Raidah, Philipp Rhensius aka Alienationist, Urs Rihs, Rami Sabbagh, Tanasgol Sabbagh, Sergio Salazar, Justin Oliver Salhani, Jacek Szczepanek Nate Sloan, André Santos, Diana Santos, Ali Sayah, Tillman Severin, Martin Stokes, Studio Flux, Anubhuti Sharma, Majd Shidiac, Jorgé Aarón Silva Rodríguez, Thasil Suhara Backer, Suvani Suri, Gisela Swaragita, Pjotr Tkacz-Bielewicz, Shzr Ee Tan, Wiwi Tri, Fujiko Urdininea, Maria Uthe, Ujif_notfound, Upendra Vaddadi, Abhishek Vidyarthy Singh, Johann Voigt, Elijah Wald, McKenzie Wark, Arief Wibisono, Ytasha Womack, Kimihiro Yasakaedited by Philipp Rhensius, Janina Neustupny, Thomas Burkhalter, Hannes Liechti, and Vinzent Maria Preuß    Softback ,16.5 × 23.5 cm, full colour, 314ppNorient Books, Bern, July 2025

The Norient Special Sonic Traces: From Italy is a multi-layered, multimedia approach to the open question of «Italian Identity» in sound and music. Through a variety of approaches, from essay to memoir, interview, video playlist, and open letter, Sonic Traces: From Italy hopes to foster a broader conversation on the past and present of Italian culture, as it asks the unanswered question: What can be labeled as Italian music, after all?  edited by Francesco Fusaro With contributions by Riccardo Balli, Lorenzo Brusci, Federico Campagna, Lorenzo Cibrario, Luca Locati Luciani, Sonia Garcia, Paola Laforgia, Marco Mancassola, Maria Catena Mancuso, Nathasha Edirippulige Fernando, Seb Patane, Agostino Quaranta, Bruno Rana, Justin Salhani Softcover, 132pp Norient Books, Bern, May 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

Les Disques Bongo Joe are pleased to announce the fourth album of La Tène ! Collaborating for the third time with the band, we're proud to release Ecorcha/Taillee, a two track project in between drone, folk, experimental and occitan music. La Tène’s long, hypnotic, wordless pieces are built from traditional folk instrumentation, wild percussion and blurred, subtle electronic embellishments, and feel as ancient and earthy as those millennia-old artefacts – with all the metal, wood, dedication and craftsmanship they entailed. As on their previous release Abandonnée / Maleja, a double set running to over 80 minutes, Cyril Bondi, Alexis Degrenier and Laurent Peter expand to seven members in total. Cohorts Jacques Puech (cabrette – a small bagpipe associated with the Auvergne region of France), Louis Jacques (cabrette and a larger, 23” bagpipe), Guilhem Lacroux (12-string guitar) and Jérémie Sauvage (bass) each return to add colour, layers and intrigue. Ecorcha/Taillée was recorded in a barn converted into a ballroom and cultural centre which exists to promote the folk music of region Auvergne. Both L’Ecorcha (eighteen and a half minutes long) and La Taillée (just under a quarter of an hour, brevity by this group’s standards) were recorded live and what you hear is a single take, with no editing after the fact. L’Ecorcha goes into space with simple, minimal tools. Beginning with a single, doomy chord circling in perpetuity and a metallic shaker by way of rhythm, a drone of unspecified provenance is joined a little under halfway through by Alexis’ hurdy-gurdy, adding bucolic buoyancy while Laurent uses the wooden surface of his harmonium as an extra percussive source. La Taillée is spikier, danceable even thanks thanks to Cyril’s insistent drumming and the harmonium and hurdy-gurdy moving in a glorious lockstep. If you were to think of the relationship between Lou Reed’s guitar and John Cale’s violin while taking in La Taillée, you wouldn’t be OTT by any means. nspirations, soundalikes and kindred spirits are elusive and fleeting in the case of La Tène. There are a couple specific to Ecorcha/Taillée, both brought to the table by Alexis : a Christian song titled La Passion, collected in 1883 by French folklorist Félix Arnaudin, and a reggaeton hit single from 2022, Saoko by Spanish star Rosalía. La Taillée adapts its crunchy central riff in La Tène’s own image. It’s that link between the past and the future that also rings out in the music of La Tène.  Alexis Degrenier : Amplified Hurdy-Gurdy - Vielle À Roue Amplifiée Cyril Bondi : Percussions - Percussions D’Incise : Indian Harmonium, Electronic, Percussions - Harmonium Indien, Electronique, Percussions Jacques Puech : Cabrette - Cabrette Louis Jacques : Cabrette, 23'' Bagpipe - Cabrette, Cornemuse 23'' Guilhem Lacroux: 12 Strings Guitar - Guitare 12 Cordes Jérémie Sauvage: Electric Bass - Basse Electrique

Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp’s latest album, “Ventre Unique”, is a dynamic exploration that seamlessly blends folk, krautrock, post-punk, and African rhythms, delivering an emotionally charged yet exuberant listening experience. Helmed by Geneva-based Vincent Bertholet, the orchestra’s ever-evolving lineup and distinctive sound pay homage to both African music traditions and avant-garde artist Marcel Duchamp, while pushing the boundaries of contemporary music.Recorded over ten days in the outskirts of Paris at Studio Midilive, the album features an eclectic international cast of 12 musicians. The result is a beautifully organic sound that balances Bertholet’s simple, loop-based compositions with intricate arrangements of marimba, horns, strings, and angular guitars.Ventre Unique is the group’s sixth album and follows their acclaimed 2021 release, “We’re Ok But We’re Lost Anyway”. While their previous work captured the disarray of the world during the pandemic, “Ventre Unique” reflects on shared human experiences, inviting listeners to find common ground through music.

The invisible force meets the ancient object — two ensembles for the price of one and a half! Synths, sintir, and much more. Sky music by deep earth people...

"Side A, ‘Swinging’, is so titled because the musicians hang three drums from the ceiling and have them create noise – aqueous, haunted, tense – with proximate contact mics and feedbacking mini-speakers. Perhaps improbably, this piece has a rock-adjacent sense of abandon to it, which is less the case for flip track ‘Oscillating’, though intrigue is inherent to these waves of sine (which occasionally coalesce into something foley effect-worthy) and their effect on taut vellum." - The QuietusThe second release from the trio of Conal Blake, Regan Bowering and Li Song. Two Movements 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 Unami

Infant Tree, August 2025   yan jun, a musician and poet based in beijing.he works on experimental music and improvised music. he uses noise, field recording, body and concept as materials.sometimes he goes to audience’s home for playing a plastic bag.“i wish i was a piece of field recording.”yanjun.org     Eric Wong is a Berlin-based musician and sound artist whose work involves auditory perception and the exploration of human relationships with sonic environments. He often incorporates spatialized sound and reduced expressions in his work, focusing on fewer gestures instead of constructing linear or non-linear sonic narratives. Wong has performed at venues and festivals including Volksbühne (Berlin), Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), Twenty Alpha (Hong Kong), KM28 (Berlin), Ftarri (Tokyo), 411 Kent Avenue (Brooklyn), ausland (Berlin), Record Shop (Brooklyn), Q-O2 (Brussels), PAS (Berlin), Richten 25 (Berlin), Les 26 Chaises (Paris), OTOOTO (Tokyo), Ting Shuo Hear Say (Tainan), Cute Lab (Brooklyn), Moozak (Vienna), Hošek Contemporary (Berlin), Labor Sonor (Berlin), Les 26 Chaises (Paris), Freespace Noise Fest (Hong Kong), Cynetart (Dresden), Internationales Klangkunstfest (Berlin), Blaues Rauschen (Herne), Soundance Festival (Berlin), Festival Experimentelle Musik (Munich), and Sound Forms (Hong Kong). He has released music on labels Edition Wandelweiser, Creative Sources, Inexhaustible Editions, Full Body Massage Records, Lona Records, Sello Postal, Vintage Vinyl HK, Party Perfect!, Aloe Records, and Ftarri.https://www.eric-wong.net/

Infant Tree, August 2025Caius Williams is a musician from London who plays the double bass, guitar, and bass guitar. He works in collaboration with others, alongside an ongoing solo project, and often works with improvisation. Some projects include ‘Crosspiece’ (with Theodora Laird), a duo with guitarist Tara Cunningham, alongside recent performances or collaborations with Lifetones (Charles Bullen of This Heat), Steve Noble, feeo, Daniel O’Sullivan, Mark Sanders, Sachiko M, Tom Challenger, Maggie Nicols, Mark Wastell, amongst others. Caius has been running the GRAIN series at Avalon Cafe in Bermondsey for the last 3 years, which is focussed on programming new and adventurous music and nurturing a growing community with cross-scene and cross-generational collaboration. https://caiuswilliams.bandcamp.com/musichttps://www.instagram.com/caiuswilliams_https://www.youtube.com/@GrainResidency   Tara Cunningham is a guitarist and composer whose work focusses on both improvisation, and pushing the textural boundaries of her instrument. Ongoing projects include; duo with bassist Caius Williams and acid-jazz group Red Snapper. She has also recently recorded part of Jack Cooper’s Modern Nature for their fourth studio album, as well as currently working with drummer Seb Rochford on his latest project for 6 guitars.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Rie Nakajima and Keiko Yamamoto are joined by violinist Billy Steiger and percussionist Marie Roux in a dozen deconstructions of Japanese folk music, for this pacy, engaging debut album. Rie’s baby orchestra of rice bowls, toys, clock workings, balloons and motors is by turns haunted, teased, adorned and laid waste by Keiko’s chanting, rumbling, whispering and stamping on the floor. The production by David ‘Flying Lizards’ Cunningham deepens and spooks the mix, which brims over with energy and wit, intimacy and presence, grace and mystery. "Suddenly we are closer to music being made than we have been for many years or longer even, so alarmingly close as to feel warmth and discomfort, as if studying the sole of a foot from a few centimetres away or holding a private whisper within an enclosed hand and feeling its trembling desire to be free; but also so far away distant as to feel each vibrant, pungent ingredient within its box or jar or bowl or packet or bottle or air-tight translucent container or brown paper bag painstakingly stirred, shaken, scattered, poured into the heated cauldron of what we call recording, its imaginary rooms and its production, though my better self prefers not to speak about or analyse the notion of ‘the studio’, this being a working up of spaces that are social, a vision of something beyond us but not quite beyond us because its existence as a listening object is real enough to make us pause and question how it was lost or never found." - David Toop --- Keiko Yamamoto / voice, melodica, flute, recorder, floor percussion, toy dog (1-7, 9-12) Rie Nakajima / objects, whistles, flute, cards, taisho koto, xylophone, piano, abacus, drain horn (1-12) Billy Steiger / violin (2,4,7-9,11,12) Marie Roux / percussion, thumb piano (2,4,7,9,11,12) --- All composition by Nakajima/Roux/Steiger/Yamamoto apart from Yobu, Hebi, Iroha, Kitsune and Are Kore (Nakajima/Yamamoto) and Futari (Nakajima/Steiger). Words by Yamamoto except 5 and 11. Iroha is a Japanese classical alphabet. Sojarobai is a working song from Miyazaki, Japan. Produced by David Cunningham.  Cover image by Marie Roux. Sleeve design by Ayako Fukuuchi.

6 panel Digisleeve CD with sleevenotes by Lol, photos and illustrations Tracks 1-5 originally released in 1978 on LP as OG 525 - The Joy Of ParanoiaTracks 6-7 originally released in 1977 on LP as OG 510 - Diverse Lol Coxhill - soprano saxophone, loose floorboardMichael Garrick - electric pianoDave Green - bassJohn Mitchell - percussionPaul Mitchell-Davidson - bass guitarKen Shaw - electric guitarVeryan Weston - pianoColin Wood - celloRichard Wright - Spanish guitar "The idea behind the original two LPs which form this re-issue was to present collective example of certain areas where I function mostly as an improvising musician. My intention with The Joy of Paranoia was to create an album which presented my saxophone improvisations within several different situations. The tracks with Michael Garrick, though based upon familiar compositions, were played very openly. The duets with Veryan Weston were spontaneous. Joy of Paranoia Waltz is based upon a simple riff with four saxophone overdubs. The Wakefield Capers, with the exception of some established rhythmic settings by the members of Paws for Thought, is improvised."  --- Lol Coxhill / soprano sax Michael Garrick / electric piano Dave Green / bass John Mitchell / percussion Paul Mitchell-Davidson / bass guitar Ken Shaw / electric guitar Veryan Weston / piano Colin Wood / cello Richard Wright / span guitar (track 1) --- Recorded at Bretton Hall, Wakefield; Hatfield Music Centre; Mekon Studios, London; Fairway Tavern, Panshanger; Seven Dials, London. Tracks 1-5 originally released in 1978 on LP as OG 525, The Joy of Paranoia. Tracks 6-7 originally released in 1977 as OG510, Diverse.

Beautiful x2 CD reissue of Moholo's essential Bra Luis - Bra Tebs and Spirits Rejoice! Bra Louis - Bra TebsLouis Moholo-Moholo - drumsFrancine Luce - voiceJason Yarde - alto & soprano saxesToby Delius - tenor saxClaude Deppa - trumpetPule Pheto - pianoRoberto Bellatella - bassSpirits Rejoice!Louis Moholo-Moholo - drumsEvan Parker - tenor saxKenny Wheeler - trumpetNick Evans - tromboneRadu Malfatti - tromboneKeith Tippett - pianoJohnny Dyani - bassHarry Miller - bass "With the Octet having whetted his appetite for band leading, Louis Moholo-Moholo went on to develop an array of ensemble projects, the longest serving of which he dubbed Viva La Black. It was with Viva that Louis toured South Africa in 1993, and for Louis and some of his compatriots in Viva the tour was nothing less than a personal triumph, a return home after three years spent in exile. Why these studio sessions rested in the vaults for so long remains a mystery. It was a slightly changed band that Louis assembled in 1995: the fresh ingredient that would move Viva into the darker, earthier grooves of Bra Louis - Bra Tebs was singer Francine Luce, originally from Martinique and now one of the vocal treasures of the London improv scene. But here they are, at last." - David Ilic   "Full of striking themes and strong improvisation, and continues a tradition that goes back a long way in South African jazz: stripped-down, hymnal themes repeated like mantras, gradually intensifying into free-jam furores, or giving way to racing swing. Some of the songs are as quirkily gentle as a Norma Winstone record, some like Annie Ross in a free-improv band - and though Francine Luce's frantic variations might not work for everybody, she's sonorous and soulful on the brooding traditional song Utshaka, and on a defiant Motherless Child."

Recorded live at OTO in April 2017 includes long time collaborators Jason Yarde on saxophones, John Edwards on bass, and Alexander Hawkins on piano, with the addition of saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings. "Another crowded night, atmosphere charged, some new faces, lots familiar...From the first note the music spirals into the spirit world, summoned, a dance of beauty and life and death., and some of our friends are crying. They are strong and crying. We've been here before and it's always a shocking truth. This music is very real." "Experience the sensation of being blown away by the waves of emotion, whether overwhelmingly ecstatic or exquisitely refined. And most of all, perhaps, listen to the Louis Moholo Moholo Quartet to understand how, in this music, the individual and the collective can simultaneously attain equal importance: a most elevated state of being." – Richard Williams, The Blue Moment, review of Louis Moholo Moholo Quartet at Cafe OTO."

"One of the most notable things Parker and Stevens have in common is their way of absorbing and transforming influences from jazz. Stevens has often paid tribute to the music of people such as Eddie Blackwell and Ornette Coleman. Parker has his roots in the records of Coltrane, Dolphy and others. They have drawn on other musics to create a new language which is very personal and not in any way parasitic upon its resources. Other contexts will find Parker playing tenor saxophone and Stevens a conventional kit. In the duo, Parker plays only soprano and Stevens' kit is diminutive - no bass drum, two hi-hats, a childs snare. Evendently they have mapped out a very special area - extremely concentrated and intimate."  --- John Stevens / percussion, cornet Evan Parker / soprano saxophone --- Front cover illustration by Geoffrey Rigden, 1986. Corner to Corner recorded direct to U-Matic master using Schoeps and Neumann microphones on June 8 1993 at Angel Studio, London, by Kirsten Cowie. Longest Night recorded on the longest night of 1976 at Riverside Studios, London, by Adam Skeaping.

Ogun marks their 40th anniversary by releasing this superb album from drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo's Unit as an octet including Alexander Hawkins on piano, John Edwards on bass, and Jason Yarde on saxes, performing a heartfelt tribute to The Blue Notes live in Italy. "Wild but still songlike collective thrashes swell out of catchy hooks (as on the title track); the street-brass sound of the old Brotherhood of Breath big band is echoed in struts like Irmite Is Right; the sonorous chant Dikelelu has a rumbling, Coltranesque undertow; and bassist John Edwards' crunching basswalk under Hawkins' zig-zagging piano solo on Sonke is awesome. There are protracted encores and namechecks at the end, but they all add to the sensation of being present at a gig you'd remember for a long time." - John Fordham --- Alexander Hawkins / piano John Edwards / bass Louis Moholo-Moholo / drums Jason Yarde / saxphones Ntshuks Bonga / saxophones Henry Lowther / trumpet Alan Tomlinson / trombone Francine Luce / vocals --- Recorded live in Milan, 2012 by Gianni Grassilli. Cover by Naiel Ibarrola.