"A long desire of extraordinaire saxophone player Peter Brötzmann was a studio recording of some of his favorite jazz tunes and his own music -- a grand bridge over the music important for his life and his musical career in the past and present. Trost invited him to Martin Siewert's studio in Vienna to do so in summer 2018. The result is intense, beautiful and touching. Features compositions by Harry Barris/Gordon Clifford, Sigmund Romberg/Oscar Hammerstein II, Herbie Nichols, Dizzy Gillespie, George Gershwin/Ira Gershwin, and Sonny Rollins. Personnel: Peter Brötzmann - tenor saxophone. Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Martin Siewert. Liner notes and artwork by Peter Brötzmann."
Peter Brötzmann – I Surrender Dear
Maple's third full-lenth outing and the first offering on Drag City. Produced by Michael Gira of The Swans. This is their unique take on Rock n' Roll High School.
U.S. Maple – Talker
Rock. It's still angular, rubbery and twitchy, but this fifth full-length contains their most straight-up Rock 'n Roll since their debut.
U.S. Maple – Purple On Time
pre-order, arriving late december / early jan Amazing duo perfromance by Hamid Drake and Piano, recorded at the Shenzhen Jazz Festival in China, during late Cotober of 2019, issued by the always amazing Shenzhen based imprint Old Heaven. Hamid Drake - 鼓 Drums / 打击乐 Percussion / 框鼓 Frame Drum / 人声 Vocals Pat Thomas - 钢琴 Piano 录制于第九届 OCT-LOFT 国际爵士音乐节,深圳 B10 现场,2019 年 10 月 20 日 Recorded at the 9th OCT-LOFT Jazz Festival, B10 Live, Shenzhen, October 20th, 2019
Hamid Drake & Pat Thomas – A Mountain Sees a Mountain
Music in Continuous Motion, Bill Orcutt’s latest entry in his 21st-century repertoire of quartet guitar music, pointedly steps away from the cut-and-paste constructivism of Music for Four Guitars into a sonic stratum that's yearningly melodic, resolutely human, and built for performance. Conceived for a 2026 NYC concert, Music in Continuous Motion shares the concision of its predecessor -- but rather than the discrete, mechanistic precision of Music for Four Guitars, the tracks on Music in Continuous Motion unify — each song weaving four gleaming threads into the warp and weft of an evolving, complex texture that employs simple, repeating motifs to build new melodies from counterpoint itself. It accomplishes this in the most efficient manner possible: most of these 12 tracks hover around two-and-a-half minutes, each iterating first the substrate, then the melody and its variations, then slamming shut like a clockwork music box.Based on previous recorded evidence, Orcutt is fond of boundary conditions for his studio guitar records. Much of the time, his launchpad is obvious (The Four Louies, How to Rescue Things); with others, it’s intentionally obscured. When recruiting me to write about each release, he might send me a clue (“This is a bridge pickup record more than a neck pickup record,” Orcutt helpfully offered for Music for Four Guitars). Although any given dispatch is a potential red herring, up until now, each has implied an Oulipian conceit (however obtuse) that at least somewhat determines the outcome. Thus, I was a bit surprised by his statement on Music in Continuous Motion -- “The mystery of how [the] same person, same process, same gear produces different results." When pressed, he elaborated that the record features “no triplets,” something I’ve yet to count out to determine for myself.Whatever overarching form the recording process may have mapped out, the path of the finished album is explicitly poetic. Echoing its predecessor, the song titles, read in sequence, paint fleetingly-glimpsed forms -- but in contrast to the distant shapes described in Music For Four Guitars, the present narrative spotlights the dance of polygons momentarily grasped (and then lost) as they spin through space: “Because sharp also smooth,” “And warm to the touch,” “Now nearly gone,” “Yet always moving,” “Impossible to reach.” Ultimately, the key difference between the albums (and what places Music in Continuous Motion in the realm of poetry) is its celebration of movement over immutability, of melody over form, of music as a hot wire to the heart rather than another upped ante in an arms race of inscrutability. — TOM CARTER
Bill Orcutt – Music in Continuous Motion
As Bill Orcutt’s most mature and exhilarating LP to date, Music for Four Guitars was a slab of undeniable Apollonian beauty. Its approachability and obvious novelty landed it not only on the year- end lists of every key-pushing codger in the underground in 2022, but also on NPR in the form of the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet, an ensemble assembled to perform this music and featuring Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza, and Shane Parish. But while their Tiny Desk Concert gave a whiff of the quartet’s easy intimacy, the sterile confines of the virtual recital medium still left a puzzle unsolved: how might these brutally mannered bricks of minimalist counterpoint sound on a stage in front of actual breathing bodies?This was the question foremost in my mind when I first saw the quartet in San Francisco a few months before this double live LP was recorded. I was already familiar with the prowess of Eisenberg and Mendoza, two of the most technically intimidating shredders to blast out of the noise/improv underground, and knew Parish as the mastermind behind the epic translation of Orcutt's quartet recordings into a fully notated score. I was ready to be “blown away" — and I most assuredly was. The quartet navigated Orcutt's jaggedly spiraling right angles into the shining core of the compositions with joyous ease, faithful to the originals in nearly every way (though their tempos were slightly ramped up, Blakey style, to communicate their breathless rush). The renditions were flawless, stellar and inspiring. I had expected nothing less.Which leads us to this album, Four Guitars Live, recorded in November of 2023 at Le Guess Who? festival during the quartet’s first European tour. The true essence of this set is not simply in its faithfulness to the source compositions, but in the group's easy familiarity (no doubt the result of weeks on the road) and the generosity of their improvisations, both collective and solo. Orcutt, clearly cognizant of both the caliber of his collaborators and the singularity of their voices, has given everyone room to stretch out, and all have delivered some of their most moving passages to date.One of this record's great thrills for me is imagining a listener, perhaps unfamiliar with the outer limits of contemporary guitar improvisation (or the Tzadik catalog), slammed into catatonia by Mendoza's liquefying lines on Out of the corner of the eye, then revived and healed by the languid, breathy lines of Parish's unaccompanied, spaced-out breakdown of the track's main theme, finally only to be crushed by Eisenberg’s staggering extended solo on Only at dusk (somehow channeling both Eugene Chadbourne and Buck Dharma).There's another peak, which begins at the end of side B, in Orcutt's own languid solo, encapsulating the flowing focus of his recent solo LPs, and serving as an introduction to the next side's ensemble tour de force, the psychic heart of the album, On the horizon: its melodic core passing first to Orcutt, launching into a sublime solo turn by Eisenberg, a duo of Parish and Mendoza, before parachuting back into the ensemble for a smashup rendition of Barely visible and Glimpsed while driving (renamed Barely driving) knitted together with an softly bubbling ensemble improvisation. The transfer is orchestrated yet seamless, its tonal form undeniable even in the presence of obvious dissonance.The breadth of Four Guitars Live gives lie to the false notion that agile, polytonal improv is necessarily without soul, is necessarily inaccessible. Rather, Four Guitars posits a human avant-garde music that the most conservative will recognize as virtuosic and revel in its classic intervals, boiling counterpoint, and precisely- layered facets. Even the rockers in your life might dig it, so why not pass it on?" — TOM CARTER
Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet – Four Guitars Live
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
BILL ORCUTT – Another Perfect Day
At long last, Rafael Toral delivers 'Travelling Light', his stunning, wildly anticated follow-up to 2024's critally acclaimed ‘Spectral Evolution’, via Drag City. Sprawling across beautifullay produced double LP and CD editions — complete with liner notes by Oto’s own Bradford Bailey — encountering the Portuguese, experimental journeyman embarking into the some of the most ambitious territory of his career, 'Travelling Light' is one of those rare wonders that unfolds over time and has to be heard to believed.
Rafael Toral – Traveling Light
For the time being we are unable to get to the post but if you order now your item will be posted as soon as things return to normal. Thank you for your support. Kicking off a series of collaborations between Honest Jon's Records and Incus: Solo Guitar Volume 1, a reissue of Derek Bailey's Solo Guitar release on Incus in 1971, with additional tracks included on previous reissues and a performance at York University in 1972. Recorded in 1971, this was Bailey's first solo album. Its cover is an iconic montage of photos taken in the guitar shop where he worked. He and the photographer piled up the instruments whilst the proprietor was at lunch, with Bailey promptly sacked on his return. The LP was issued in two versions over the years -- Incus 2 and 2R -- with different groupings of free improvisations paired with Bailey's performances of notated pieces by his friends Misha Mengelberg, Gavin Bryars, and Willem Breuker. All this music is here, plus a superb solo performance at York University in 1972, a welcome shock at the end of an evening of notated music. It's a striking demonstration of the way Bailey rewrote the language of the guitar with endless inventiveness, intelligence, and wit. As throughout the series, the recordings are newly transferred from tape at Abbey Road, remastered by Rashad Becker, and available for download exclusively here. --- Derek Bailey / guitar, synthesizer — Tracks 1-13 recorded by Bob Woolford and Hugh Davies. Photographs by Roberto Masotti. Mastered by Rashad Becker.
Derek Bailey – Solo Guitar Volume 1
The second LP compendium of Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru’s early solo piano works, recorded throughout the 1960s – finally available again. Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru is a true original – her compositions and unique playing style live somewhere between Erik Satie, Debussy, liturgical music of the Coptic Ethiopian Church, and Ethiopian traditional music. It is some of the most moving piano music you will ever hear! These original compositions, performed by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru herself on solo piano, were originally self-released in Germany in small editions as fundraisers for orphanages, support organizations for widows of war victims, and other philanthropic causes. We are humbled and proud to present this album in collaboration with the EMAHOY TSEGE MARIAM MUSIC PUBLISHER and Foundation, and to assist in continuing her life-long mission of using music as a vessel to care for those who have been abandoned by society, or harmed by strife. Black vinyl LP comes in black inner-sleeves and heavy cardstock jacket with color printing and gold-foil stamping, and song notes by the composer herself. Restored and remastered by Timothy Stollenwerk.
Emahoy Tsegué-Mariam Guèbru – Emahoy Tsegué-Mariam Guèbru
On Fathom, we hear the sound of the world mirrored back to us. An improvisational collaboration from legendary British multi-instrumentalist John Butcher, Pat Thomas on piano, Dominic Lash on Double Bass, and Steve Noble on Drums, the four artists play generously together. Fathom is an impressive work of avant-garde jazz that’s reminiscent of the non-musical world: squeaky wheels, growing tension, a babbling brook, all winding into lush harmonies. This marks Butcher’s debut for 577 Records.
John Butcher, Pat Thomas, Dominic Lash, Steve Noble – Fathom
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
La Tène – Ecorcha/Taillée