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

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

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

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

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

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

On “Cold Sweat,” James Brown famously called to “give the drummer some.” In 1974, Philadelphia vibraphonist Khan Jamal called to Give the Vibes Some, with superb results. Pianist and composer Jef Gilson’s PALM label gave Jamal the platform he needed to deliver a thorough exploration of contemporary vibraphone. After launching PALM in 1973, Gilson quickly demonstrated that he would only produce records not found anywhere else. Give the Vibes Some, PALM number 10, was another confirmation of this guiding principle. Raised and based in Philadelphia, Khan Jamal took up the vibes in 1968, after two years in the army during which he was stationed in France and Germany. Decisively drawn to the instrument by the work of the Modern Jazz Quartet’s Milt Jackson, Jamal studied under Philadelphia vibraphone legend Bill Lewis and soon made his debuts in the local underground.Early in 1972, Jamal made his first recording, with the Sounds of Liberation. The band attempted an original fusion of conga-heavy grooves with avant-garde jazz soloing. Saxophonist Byard Lancaster, an important figure in Jamal’s development, contributed much of the solo work. Later in 1972, Jamal made his leader debut with Drum Dance to the Motherland, a reverb-drenched, never-to-be-replicated experiment with live sound processing. Both albums appeared on the tiny musician-run Dogtown label.“We couldn’t get no play from nowhere. No gigs or recording sessions or anything. So I took off for Paris,” Jamal recalled in a Cadence interview with Ken Weiss. “Within a few weeks, I had a few articles and I did a record date. It didn’t make me feel good about America.” That was in 1974, while Byard Lancaster was recording the music gathered on Souffle Continu’s recent The Complete PALM Recordings, 1973-1974. Jamal’s record date delivered Give the Vibes Some. At its core, it was an exploratory solo vibraphone album, even if two tracks added (through technological resourcefulness?) a très célèbre French drummer very much into Elvin Jones appearing under pseudonym for contractual reasons. Another track, for which Jamal switched to the vibes’s wooden ancestor, the marimba, added young Texan trumpeter Clint Jackson III. The most notable article published on Jamal during this stay in France was a Jazz Magazine interview. Jamal’s last word there were “The Creator has a master plan/drum dance to the motherland.” “Give the vibes some” could be added to this programmatic statement.

From the 1950s, Masaaki Takano (1927-2007) worked as a freelance "sound planner," mainly creating sound effects for stage productions. In the mid-1980s he began performances called "Sound Play" where he would perform on his own self-created sound instruments and his collection of ethnic instruments. Growing out of his work with sound effects, he became obsessed with the recording of natural sounds from the 1970s onwards, and this album "Shizukutachi" is a record of a high-quality recording of water droplets that he created in the studio using his own self-created suikinchiku system. This reissue recreates the original LP, using special paper to create beautiful packaging and duplicating the original, ultra-transparent vinyl. The reissue includes newly penned, detailed liner notes by Tomotaro Kaneko (owner of the Japanese Art Sound Archive).

Originally released on tape by Sound Reporters in 1986. Het Jacoba Prieel is a very weird compendium of imaginary soundscapes, in which every coordinate seems lost and totally deviated. Fred Gales, in collaboration with Walter Maioli and Pit Piccinelli, presents his idea of ​​a concrete organic music, a diary of signals and sound impressions inspired by the great tradition of primitive music, an extreme investigation of love on the primordial beauty of sound expression. Travelling into the properties of all matter of the sonic environment, the members of the legendary Sound Reporters generate, transform, mix, filter and modulate natural and electronic sounds in the magical analogical studio of the Utrecht Institute of Sonology. From a single movement of sound fragments are opened catalyst flows and circuits, flickering sequencers and oscillations of luminous channels. Futuristic tribalism, hypnotic fossil percussion, alien sounds, dreamlike trips in the jungle, echoes of rustling and rumbles otherworldly, rain waterfalls and shells in the pond, calls of animals and insects, heart beats and radar waves. Everything is just pure sound and surrounds us

Tom Jackson : clarinetDaniel Thompson : guitar

Pre-order: Ariving late Dec / Early Jan Astounding, long-overdue repress of Art Into Life's essential X5CD survey of Anne Gillis  French artist Manon Anne Gillis began creating everyday yet theatrical sound works and performances in the early 1980s. This is the first archival collection of her work, covering her earliest pieces from 1983 under the name Devil’s Picnic up to her installation and exhibition recordings from 2005. This five-CD box set includes all the LP and CD albums released on (CRI)2, DMA2, and Rangehen; her only collaboration with another artist—a 7-inch single with her close associate G.X. Jupitter-Larsen; her compilation contributions up to 1999 (excluding a few whose original masters have been lost); and eleven previously unreleased pieces appearing here for the first time. A dense compilation filled with the imagery of beautiful isolation.

2 × CDLimited to 500 copies worldwideHand-made sleeve, each copy unique Returning with what might just be their most ambitious release to date, Vlek wades deep into the waters of historical Minimalism and delivers an astounding new rendering of Philip Glass’ monumental debut opera from 1976, ‘Einstein on the Beach’, elegantly reconfigured and performed by Suzanne Vega, Collegium Vocale Gent, and The Ictus Ensemble, capturing a site-sensitive” installation of the work from 2022, in the hands of these visionary artists and ensembles this towering historical works comes alive within profound new dimensions.

Lance Austin Olsen - amplified copper plate, shruti box, guitar, bamboo flute, found tapes, amplified objectsErin Cunes - voiceDan Godlovitch - octatrack sampler credits released April 13, 2025Score and mix by Lance Austin OlsenMastered by alan Jones at Laminal AudioCover image by Lance austin OlsenDesign by Matthew BrandiProduced by Mark Wastell"Lance Austin Olsen's "Death in the Urban Jungle" is a singular electroacoustic composition that blends scored structure with improvisational energy across one extended track. Working with a highly tactile set of materials-amplified copper plate, shruti box, bamboo flute, guitar, and found tapes-Olsen layers physical sound with the haunting voice of Erin Cunes and the digital manipulation of Dan Godlovitch's Octatrack sampler. The result is an immersive piece that unfolds slowly and deliberately, marked by long stretches of near-silence punctuated by sudden sonic intrusions. Silence here is not absence, but a charged space that heightens every gesture and breath. From resonance to rupture, the composition explores decay, tension, and transformation, evoking the slow erosion of the self within the constructed chaos of urban life. Listeners are advised to use headphones to fully engage with the nuanced depth of this stark and poetic work." (Squidco)

Michael Pisaro-Liu - electric guitar (track 2)Michael Francis Duch - double bass Within (2) / Appearance (2) by Michael Pisaro-Liu presents a contemplative exploration of duration and silence, foregrounding gradual transformation. These extended works for guitar and double bass, created with Michael Francis Duch, reward patient listening and engage with resonance and subtlety over spectacle. Within (2) / Appearance (2) marks a further evolution in Michael Pisaro-Liu's practice, threading together patience and attentiveness across two ambitious compositions. Joined by Michael Francis Duch on double bass, Pisaro-Liu sculpts each movement with an acute sensitivity to timbre and pause, offering listeners a space where minute changes gain emotional gravity. “Within (2)” focuses on solo instrument resonance, shaping an hour-long meditation on overtones and presence, while “Appearance (2)” draws out conversational interplay, shaping an austere yet deeply human dialogue between guitar and bass. The work unfolds gradually, each sonic gesture a deliberate event amidst an unhurried progression. These pieces reaffirm Pisaro-Liu’s place within the tradition of Wandelweiser and reductionist composition, yet they remain uniquely singular—quietly radical and emotionally resonant, reaching those drawn to listening as meditation and as an evolving act of discovery.

Henry Dagg is a composer, improvisor, sound sculptor and builder of experimental musical instruments who formerly worked as a sound engineer for the BBC. His works include the Sharpsichord, a pin barrel harp commissioned for the English Folk Dance and Song Society, and a pair of steel sculptural musical gates for Rochester Independent College.“What he’s doing is a very serious body of work. Henry’s not an ordinary commercial artist/musician; he seeks perfection, and he’ll get it at any cost.”— Brian Pain, Rochester Independent CollegeEvan Parker improvises on the tenor and soprano saxophone, and has performed live and recorded extensively across the UK and internationally. He has pioneered or substantially expanded an array of extended techniques for the saxophone.“The UK’s greatest exponent of free jazz.”— Mike Hobart, Financial TimesHenry and Evan improvised together for the first time as part of the Free Range series in Canterbury, Kent, on December 2, 2021. For the performance, Evan played soprano saxophone, and Henry developed a new electronic instrument called the Stage Cage, to both process Evan’s live sound as well as generate its own sounds.The Stage Cage includes four valve test-oscillators, a pair of ring modulators, frequency shifter, chromatic zither, and a variable tape delay system (consisting of two quarter-inch tape machines, eight feet apart – the first machine records, and the tape runs past moveable playback heads to the second machine, allowing several replays). Henry's main performance interface is a ‘dynamic router’: a five-key controller, which is the bridge between most of the components of the Stage Cage.Towards the end of the performance, the tape machines were stopped, their reels reversed and set to play: the improvisation from then on was overlaid by a reverse reproduction of what Henry and Evan had already been performing, with the reverse recording itself also being subjected to various treatments.The live recording was subsequently developed by Henry for this 56 minute album. Evan notes in the accompanying booklet interview: “I would say it will sound better now, because of the post-production work that Henry’s done, using the live recording as – basically – tracks to be part of a new mix, a new project, which obviously overlaps hugely with what we did in the room, but it should be more detailed and better balanced in certain parts. Some post-production decisions that technology makes possible, where they led to improvements, Henry used those possibilities. It should be better than being at the event …”For the CD and digital release, the recording has been mastered by Adam Skeaping, and a conversation between Henry, Evan and performance artist Karen Christopher is included in a 20 page booklet.______________________________________________________“This 56-minute improvisation demonstrates the fearless sonic imagination of both Parker and Dagg, always searching for unchartered territories and with great attention to detail and a totally free and unpredictable spirit, but their own way of suggesting a cohesive and coherent improvisation. Its arresting atmosphere visits abstract musique concrète, otherworldly, deep-space ambient journeys, and a careful but sometimes subversive and kaleidoscopic investigation of the soprano sax tones and overtones, live and processed ones.”— Salt Peanuts, on THEN THROUGH NOW______________________________________________________Music by Henry Dagg and Evan ParkerOriginal recording by RouteStockProduction by Henry DaggMastered by Adam Skeaping Photographs by RouteStockDesign by David Caines Gatefold sleeve, with 20 page bookletOriginal live recording: Fruitworks/Fond Coffee, Jewry Lane, Canterbury, as part of the Free Range series, December 2, 2021. freerangecanterbury.orgAlbum launch event & benefit for the venue:The Hot Tin, Faversham: November 20, 2022

Live Knots, Oren Ambarchi’s first release for PAN, presents two live realizations of ‘Knots’, the epic centrepiece of his Audience of One (Touch, 2012) release. Built on the interplay between Ambarchi’s swirling, guitar harmonics and the metronomic pulse and shifting accents of Joe Talia’s DeJohnette-esque drumming, the piece merges the organic push and pull of free improvisation with an overarching compositional framework. ‘Tokyo Knots’ presents the complete recording of a duo performance of the piece by Ambarchi and Talia recorded at Tokyo’s legendary SuperDeluxe in March 2013. The performance builds gently on the foundation of Talia’s insistent ride cymbal and the shifting tonal bed of Ambarchi’s rich overtone-drenched guitar, eventually going into a free rock free fall of buzzsaw harmonics and crashing drums. From within the maelstrom, Talia picks up a pulsing motorik rhythm that leads the piece back to where it began, with the addition of the shuddering, elastic tones of a hand-played spring reverb unit. ‘Krakow Knots’, recorded live at Unsound Festival in Krakow in 2013, works with the same basic structure but stretches it out to nearly twice the length and adds strings played by the Sinfonietta Cracovia, led by Eyvind Kang on viola. The strings expand the piece’s textural range with lush chordal blocks, uneasy dissonances and occasional Ligeti-esque swarms of micro-activity, the swelling string tones intensifying the ecstatic nature of the piece as it moves towards its mid-point crescendo in which Ambarchi unleashes a particularly malicious continuum of stuttering harmonic fuzz. The strings then enter with a series of swelling chords, announcing the piece’s final movement, and reaffirming the uniqueness of the tonal and compositional language that Ambarchi has patiently developed over the last two decades, in which the influence of post-minimal composers such as Alvin Curran, Gavin Bryars and David Behrman can be felt alongside the inspiration of raw free jazz, harsh noise and academic psychoacoustics. The final moments of the performance pit Talia and Crys Cole’s amplified objects and spring reverb textures against a field of gently gliding string glissandi before the audience erupts in much-deserved applause. – Francis Plagne

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

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