his music and its exponents defy categorization. The word 'band' doesn't cover it. Concept; project; workshop; experiment; energy; assembly; community; association. Black Top is all of the above and more, and although the music industry would call the British multi-instrumentalists Orphy Robinson and Pat Thomas a group that is augmented by different guests for their performances there is too much imagination and unpredictability in the results for the term to be really a propos. Black Top is its own thing, or something, or some kinda ting for our times, if one adapts the zeitgeist that the visionary dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson has referred to as 'tings an' times'. Since its genesis in 2011 Black Top has been through significant changes in sound and personnel so that any signature they present is most likely to be soon rewritten. Two previous recordings have seen two great British saxophonists, Steve Williamson and Evan Parker, respectively, each become the third point of the triangle, but on this session it is two stellar American improvisers, drummer Hamid Drake and double bassist William Parker, who join the fluid fraternity. They duly cement a pivotal transatlantic exchange in creative music, a kinship that builds on Robinson's work with such as Lester Bowie in the early part of his career and Thomas's with Butch Morris in his. As much as the four players in this latest incarnation of Black Top represent iconic spaces in the world of western music – London and New York, whence they emerged during the '70s and '80s – they also have non-western common denominators. Thomas and Robinson maintain a deeply rooted interest in Caribbean folk that chimes with Parker's avowed love of calypso – heard in his own bands and in collaborations with Trinidadian-American vocalist Faye Victor – while all three and Drake have immersed themselves in African, Middle Eastern and Asian music. This vast amount of information permeates and percolates in pieces that fearlessly uphold the principle of spontaneous composition. When the players convened at east London's Café Oto in August 2016 during Black Top's two-day residency there was great expectation over what the meeting would produce, but the extent to which they deeply personalized the myriad vocabularies housed by the word 'jazz' was gripping. A reprise of Moanin', the anthem forever linked to drum-star pioneer Art Blakey, drops rakish dissonance into the gospel-fired theme to present hard bop and avant-garde as cousins at play rather than brothers in arms, while the 42 minute opus For Joe Harriott investigates the kind of skilful mutation-elaborations synonymous with the Jamaican legend. Yet amid all the fiery disruption there is sensual dance. This is where the ensemble unveils its most boldfaced dynamic range, turning a two-beat tick-tock of marimba into a time-stretch suite whose vigorous rhythmic invention sees clavé, shekere and cabassa phrases swerve around hammer-headed keyboard syncopations. Stark shifts in tempo and attack push the music into both floating freeform and a groove broken free of a 12 bar shackle before Sun Ra's space organ skanks into view and the music fades to black over a tantalizing roots reggae surge. Histories rather than history are in effect. Traditions rather than tradition are in vivo. Black Top is a laboratory of sound, and in this third offering of its evolutionary trials four audio scientists play with notes and tones as if tomorrow's blues had come today. - Kevin Le Gendre, London, 2017.

Recorded in 1989 and only now released, this studio album includes Pat Thomas on keys & electronics in a sextet with guitar & bass, synth, turntables, electronic wind instruments, drum machines, samplers, &c.;, merging ea-improv approaches with disruptively odd asides, fragmented voices, and swelling interventions, making something otherworldly out of then-revelatory technology. Keyboards, Electronics, Composed By – Pat Thomas Drum Machine, Samples, Electronics, Producer, Composed By – Geoff Serle Electric Bass – John McCullough Electronic Wind Instrument [WX7], Composed By – Pete McPhail* Guitar, Composed By – Richard Chapman Turntables, Composed By – Neil Palmer

CD version containing Baroque Jazz Trio "Orientasie / Largo" as bonus tracks Mixing Baroque, free-jazz and world music, the unique album of the Baroque Jazz Trio (which is in fact 3/5 of the Bach Modern Quintet) is a difficult-to-label sound object which is far from being typical of the psychedelic sounds associated with the early 1970s. Because, although fusion with Indian music (amongst others) and jazz (but also pop) was popular at the time, rarely had all this been mixed together with Baroque music. Even mentioning Jacques Loussier adapting Bach does not come close, as here, all barriers are broken down, with an audacity which begins with the highly original and extraordinary use of the harpsichord, an instrument which it is unusual to hear in such a context, even though indicated by the ‘baroque’ in the title. Of course jazz specialists will mention Johnny Guarnieri in the Gramercy Five with Artie Shaw, Martial Solal playing "Four Brothers" in 1965, or Lalo Schifrin in his homage to the Marquis de Sade… But no, none of these references really makes sense, as they pale in comparison to the wild adventures of Georges Rabol, probably closer to Call Cobbs with Albert Ayler, or, better still, Odile Bailleux in another remarkable French group, Armonicord, than anyone else. With George, the rhythm section is no less outstanding,: Jean-Charles Capon, who, two years later would record the magnificent L'Univers-solitude on the same label, is a flying cello virtuoso, while Philippe Combelle, a great drummer rarely heard in such experimental circumstances, plays daringly mixed percussion. Also noteworthy is the presence of flutist, Michel Roques on one track, who was also behind a Saravah album, the splendid Chorus. In France, whether or not groups like Moravagine, Confluence or Synchro Rhythmic Eclectic Language, working in similarly unusual areas, are taken into account, it is rare to find a group which, like the Baroque Jazz Trio, have been able to so blur the boundaries, especially by adding an exotic breath of fresh air inherited from the Third Stream. This record, alongside the album by Brigitte Fontaine with the Art Ensemble of Chicago made Pierre Barouh stand out as a pioneering producer and destroyer of stylistic frontiers.

The Story of Rêverie Luca and Markus began playing together in 2005, when Markus formed an international ensemble to play at the Suoni delle Dolomiti festival. One year later they performed as a quintet in St. Maternus in Cologne, Germany, where they recorded a live album, which initiated the project called “Flowers of Now”. (Intuitive Music in Cologne, Horus Label, 2008). Later on Markus played on two tracks of Luca’s Tacet (Extreme Records, 2008) and on the double album Songs/Signs of Luca’s project Flos with Stefano Castagna (Ritmo&Blu;, 2018). More live performances followed. On July 9th, 2021 Markus visited Luca while traveling to some concerts in central Italy. They set up in Luca’s studio and recorded a fully improvised set, where nothing was previously arranged or agreed. The full set is captured on this album: four takes without any overdubs. The music reflects the meeting of two different musical stories, each musician reacting to the other in a continuous flow of inspiration, tension and release. Their dedication to listening to each other is tangible and yet they still maintain their personal presence - to call or answer and to move together into unknown territories. You can almost grasp the musicians’ wonder at the evolving and unpredictable sonic landscape. Acoustic sounds interweave with electronic parts in constant exploration with the spontaneity of intuitive composition. A deep sense of space and dreamlike atmospheres emerge from the music, the dimensions of width, depth and time seem to expand.”

Irish Traveller, Singer, Storyteller, Thomas McCarthy comes from Birr in County Offaly in Ireland. His family are the McCarthys who settled there generations ago.Thomas McCarthy come from a long line of old traditional singers and musicians who kept the tradition of singing strong.Thomas McCarthy’s CD Comfort features 10 songs handed down through his Irish Traveller family tradition. Only a few are commonly sung, and most are particular to Thomas’s family branch.

ll人 = Daichi Yoshikawa + Paul Abbott + Seymour Wright lll人 came from London in 2012, and played there, and internationally: Berlin, Bratislava, Budapest, Dala Floda, Glasgow, Hong Kong, Ljublana, Paris, and Tokyo. With lll人 the tools are familiar, the listening is not. VICTOR is a 2-CD for lll人's friend Victor Schonfield (1940-2022). released March 7, 2024 CD1 = yE Recorded (after a John Tilbury solo) at Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook on August 31, 2016. Mixed by John Chantler CD2 = Ah Recorded (before a KK Null solo) at Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook on December 8, 2016. Mixed by Paul Abbott

Two new solo works by Kieran Daly and Luciano Maggiore ‘Complex envelope functions from nonlinear I/O and feature extraction etc’ and ‘Automatic Love’, sharing one disc. The first instance of these two presenting work in company; they play well together, forming a cohesive ‘split’ disc from beginning to end. Composed in 2023, both pieces deal with electronic and acoustic recorded sound, whilst presenting the distinctive, recognisable and acute styles of both artists. The music is available in digital and physical formats, with mastering by Taku Unami.

Joe McPhee and Ingebrigt Haker Flaten at the Sugar Maple/Okka Fest on Saturday, June 6th, 2015. Joe McPhee - tenor and soprano saxophone. Ingebrigt Haker Flaten - double bass. Recorded live by Dave Zuchowski. Mastered by Martin Siewert in July/August 2016.

Switchback - Plywie Kacza 201 Paradiso Infernal - Live 2022 Schlippenbach / Johansson - The Fox Let's Go 2017 Full Blast - Moods 2007 Uruk - Live 2019 Last Dream Of The Morning - Shaken Light 2021 Snekkestad / Guy / Fernandez - Ripples 2018 The End - Translated Slaughter 2019 Schnee - No Time 2018 Jim O'Rourke - Live 2010 InAWhirl - Nido IV 2021 Joelle Leandre - Live 2013 Also - Twelve 2021 Amado / Corsano - Seeking 2019 Caspar Brötzmann Bass Totem - When Black Days Never End Part 1 2021 Bruch - Sugary 2017 Vandermark / Kurzmann / Kern - Swan Song 2021 The Thing - Live 2017 Part 4 They Shall Not Pass  /  No Pasaran!Live on planet earth - in the spirit of freedom, peace and solidarityAs we saw the horrible events going on in the Ukraine, we wanted to do something as a label as well beside donating on a personal level. many (trost related) artists answered right away and were enthusiastic to participate. the material-collecting and mastering took some time, but sadly it is still an issue and no-one knows how long this despicable war will last. the title of the compilation is "No Pasaran" (they shall not pass) translated into Ukrainian. it was a shout in the 30s to defend democracy in spain, to fight against the fascists.big thanks to all artists, bookers, venues and helpers involved.the great work of Martin Siewert and Lasse Marhaug was happening in support of this project, longtime cd pressing company Gusstaff Records made a special price and the austrian SKE fonds gave financial support.all proceeds of this compilation are donated to an artist-run Ukrainian aid organisation helping victims of the war, recommended by Ken Vandermark

Long known as Cecil Taylor's most reliable and loyal colleague, alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons has a select discography as a leader, and among its best entries is Push Pull, originally issued by Hat Hut as a massive 3-LP set. Recorded during a single marathon performance at the Collective for Living Cinema in New York in 1978, Push Pull features five extended pieces, all by Lyons, with his working quintet that included his wife Karen Borca on bassoon, Hayes Burnett on bass, Munner Bernard Fennell on cello, and Roger Blank on drums. Jolting, quicksilver free jazz with terse themes and brilliant interplay, the music is quintessential Lyons – searching, pliant, and sincere. Remastered from the original tapes, this first reissue of Push Pull compiles the original tracks – two of which were split to accommodate the 20-minute limit of LP – into their original full length, fitting the whole program onto two CDs, lovingly repackaged featuring the original Klaus Baumgärtner cover. 1. Mary Mary (32:50) 2. After You Left A (15:55) 3. After You Left B (6:55) 4. Tortuga (17:40) 5. Push Pull (14:30) 6. Breakout (21:30) Jimmy Lyons, alto saxophone Karen Borca, bassoon Hayes Burnett, bass Munner Bernard Fennell, cello Roger Blank, drums Compositions by Jimmy Lyons. Recorded by Karen Borca, May 6, 1978 at the Collective for Living Cinema, New York.

Joe McPhee’s response to the challenge of making a new CD of solo music during COVID was to go at it head on, to address the present in its starkest aspects, to reach for comfort in the music of great composers, and to speak directly to the virus in no uncertain terms.  The result is unlike any other of McPhee’s many records, a variety show of improvisations, favorite compositions, field recording, multi-tracking, incantation and recitation.  After searching for the right studio-like setting with an ideal sound, but hampered by the restrictions of quarantine, he abandoned such hope and dug out a clothes closet in his Poughkeepsie house, where he could approach the task with an unconventional intimacy.  In the dead of night, McPhee played luscious versions of compositions by Carla Bley and Charles Mingus, extrapolating on their melodies, even singing a Joni Mitchell lyric to Mingus’s “Goodbye Porkpie Hat.”  Elsewhere he plays harrowing tenor saxophone improvisations, a plaintive tone entering his melancholic melodic sensibility.  On the title track, McPhee layers a dozen aching blues lines atop a field recording of the namesake highway, and in another piece he discovers an entire drum choir in the noise of dripping water on a tin plate in his sink, something he dedicates to Ruth Bader Ginzburg, whose death was announced moments before he noticed the environmental sound.  On one of several very short, intense tracks, McPhee literally attempts to reverse the virus by intoning a spell-like chant: “Out, damned bug/Out, damned bug!”  The package includes extensive track-by-track liner notes and a poem by McPhee, with artwork and design by Christopher Wool. A Reflection On Ida Lupino [06:28] A Self Portrait in Three Colors [13:14] Route 84 Quarantine Blues [06:53] Cuernavaca ’79 [02:23] Goodbye Porky Pig Hat [06:59] Be Gone Damn Bug [01:24] Forget Paris [01:25] Do You Still Love Me? [01:22] Improvision For The End Of COVID [01:01] Im-Pro-Vi-Sation [3:01] Tzedek, Tzedek (For RBG) [05:49] Joe McPhee, saxophone Cover design and artwork by Christopher Wool. CD design by David Khan-Giordano. Produced by John Corbett and Christopher Wool.   CvsDCD081

Written and recorded between 1972 and 1982 in Western Oregon, Back to the Woodlands is a previously unreleased, and nearly lost, album made by Ernest Hood during the same era as his near mythical album Neighborhoods. A visionary combination of field recordings, zithers, and synthesizers, Back to the Woodlands offers an unprecedented depth of access to this singular artistic mind. Working closely with his estate to maintain his original vision, Freedom to Spend has restored and remastered this never before released, lost masterpiece by Ernest Hood from the original tapes. Ernest Hood’s Back to the Woodlands will be issued on vinyl, as well as on CD in combination with its contemporary Where the Woods Begin, with new liner notes by Michael Klausman.

A fantastic new release by Rory Salter aka Malvern Brume on Index Clean The two main ideas behind the music are to make use of domestic and work situations. Most of it was recorded in a new flat I moved into last year. The place had a really interesting acoustic and after so many years of making music in whatever flat I was living in I wanted to do something where you could really hear the place it was recorded/the surrounding area. So a lot of the recordings are done in different locations in the flat, and often re-played back into the flat and recorded using different speakers and microphones. A lot of material was recorded whilst performing usual domestic activities and would spend quite a lot of time running between rooms doing other tasks at the same time as recording. The name of the 'On the Floor, by the Door' track is because that's where I recorded a fair bit of it, by the front door. It's in a similar way that I used and included my job in the pieces. I work as a sound technician at a university in the day and as a sound engineer in the evenings a couple times a week. I've been thinking (and talking a lot of shit) about work and art making recently and I’m really into stuff where the persons found some way to include their day job in their art in a way that sort of re-purposes the skills, materials, time etc of work. So anyway I did a lot of this, really thinking about skills I've picked up and making the effort to borrow some really otherwise unattainable equipment. I thought a lot about space and acoustic-ness during the process so a lot of it again is about me wanting sound to exist within a space; reamping sounds into spaces, or recording synthesised sounds through different speakers positioned in ways to filter and alter the sound. A lot of these practices are things I've developed and talked about a lot at work. Friends also feature quite a bit in relatively candid ways and crop up in recordings here and there. I guess there's a desire to get to a point of a 'life' music, where it feels a bit everyday and blurs the line a bit, that's when things are most interesting to me.- Rory Salter

A tremendous collection of recordings from famed Fluxus poet and artist Jackson Mac Low (1922-2004).  Originally published on New Wilderness Audiographics as a cassette in 1977, these recordings have been cleaned up and remastered by Sean McCann in 2018.  Jackson’s beautiful text formulas are supplemented by stereo multi-tracking, creating a spatial jungle of wordplay. One gem of this CD is the live foray into tape manipulation from 1966 featuring the assistance of James Tenney and Max Neuhaus. It is fabled that they took Jackson’s voice and slowed it down to a guttural thunderstorm during playback, resulting in a manic blend of words darting through a black cloud of reverberation.  Only a small amount of Jackson’s sound poetry is available, making this collection a delight to swallow and digest. Produced with Charlie Morrow, we are thrilled to re-present this history to the ears of both young and old. Edition of 250 Glass-mastered CD housed in Jewel-case 8-page insert with scores and introduction by Charlie Morrow

Danish pianist Tom Prehn was one of the first Europeans to deeply explore free music. With his quartet featuring Fritz Krogh on tenor saxophone, Poul Ehlers on bass, and Finn Slumstrup on drums, Prehn recorded Axiom in October, 1963, for Sonet, though it went unreleased until 2015 because the band felt that their music had moved beyond it already. To hear the music they were talking about, one could only turn to two privately-made reel-to-reel tapes, Centrifuga and Sohlverv, recorded in August, 1964, and January, 1965, respectively. Both sessions took place under casual circumstances at Prehn’s summer cottage outside Aarhus, but the music was dead serious – some of the most adventurous improvising yet made by a group on the continent. --- Piano: Tom PrehnBass: Poul EhlersDrums: Finn SlumstrupTenor Saxophone: Fritz KroghRemastered by Sigurd Djurhuus ---TracklistA Side A 22:28B Side B 21:49 --- Released: Corbett vs Dempsey

The original soundtrack performed by Tomeka Reid & co. for the critically-acclaimed, feature-length 2014 documentary, "Hairy Who and The Chicago Imagists," directed by Leslie Buchbinder of Pentimenti Productions. "Hairy Who and the Chicago Imagists" is a lavishly-illustrated romp through Chicago's art history, and the first film to tell the Imagists’ whole story. The narrative begins with the artists' explosion onto the scene in the 1960s, follows their precipitous fade from prominence in the 1980s and '90s, and concludes with their 21st century resurgence in popularity. Over the last 50 years, the Imagists have influenced generations of artists, including contemporary figures like Jeff Koons, Chris Ware, Kerry James Marshall, Peter Doig, and Gary Panter. The Imagists' roller-coaster ride through art history is re-created in this film with a wealth of archival footage and photographs, and over forty interviews with the Imagists themselves, critics, curators, collectors, and contemporary artists. Chicago-based cellist and composer Tomeka Reid, a mainstay on the Windy City scene and an important contemporary member of the A.A.C.M., was commissioned to create original music for the first documentary to chronicle the Imagists, Chicago’s hometown post-surrealists who exhibited together starting in the mid-1960s. Reid composed theme music for the film and made a wide range of multi-track improvisations based on moods, creating a tableau from which the film drew as it unwound the artists’ circuitous tale. For the CD, Reid returned to the studio to make new versions of some of the tracks and to transform the extant material into a fully realized suite of music. It retains a sense of light-heartedness and depth, whimsy and melancholy, adding voice and percussion to her indelible cello.