Rattle are Katharine Eira Brown and Theresa Wrigley, both on drums and both on vocals. They played their first set at OTO as part of The Ex’s 2016 residency, and returned in 2017 to deliver their gleefully deconstructed and hypnotic songs in support of Sacred Paws. Stripped of ego, spacious and infectious, Rattle make structured minimalism unnerving, awkward, but mainly fun. "Rattle, however, aren't about racket or ego. When Katharine Elra Brown and Theresa Wrigley sit on their separate thrones, they turn their beats into building blocks. With just two kits and their beguiling voices, the duo have created a jigsaw of a debut – and not one of those frustrating puzzles with 1000 tiny pieces, but a fast-paced game full of constant discovery and reward." - Lee Adcock   ---   Katharine Eira Brown / drums, vocals   Theresa Wrigley / drums, vocals   ---   Recorded by Shaun Crook on Sunday 29th January 2017. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn. Photo by Dawid Laskowski. Artwork by Oli Barrett. All songs are from Rattle's first album 'Rattle' released in August 2016 on I Own You / Upset The Rhythm Records.

Solo set from French hurdy-gurdy player Yann Gourdon. One third of the drone trio France and part of the La Nòvia collective, Gourdon's practice focuses on acoustic phenomena and dynamic relationships with the environment. Having learned to play traditional music from Auvergne by listening to field recordings, Gourdon re-orientates tradition via minimalism, honing in on a place or location's unique vibratory fields, volumes and surfaces. --- Yann Gourdon / hurdy gurdy --- Recorded on Thursday 15th October 2015 by Luca Consonni. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn. Photo by Mattias Launois. Artwork by Oliver Barratt.

Delighted to share two killer sets from Han Bennink's recent residency - a percussion duo with London legend Steve Noble, and a duo with highly distinctive pianist Alexander Hawkins. Combining equal parts virtuosity and anarchic irreverence, Bennink has never rested on his laurels, and these two duos are no exception.  --- Han Bennink / drums Alexander Hawkins / piano Steve Noble / drums -- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Friday 11th August 2017 by Shaun Crook. Mixed by James Dunn. Mastered by James Dunn. Photo by Dawid Laskowski.

Man Forever is a percussion ensemble founded by ONEIDA drummer John Colpitts. Equally versed in the disparate musical languages of DIY rock, improvisation, and contemporary classical, Colpitts created Man Forever to 'explore the outer limits of drum performance, to overwhelm, to investigate the nuances that bloom in the midst of repetitive music." Elaborate drum arrangements remain essential to Man Forever, augmented by voice and melody - and by Alexander Hawkins for this special OTO show.  "[Kid Millions] plays with a momentum and velocity that few can match and...a huge amount of soul." - The Quietus --- Kid Millions (John Colpitts) / drums, vocals   Matt Evans / percussion, organ, vocals   Amy Garapic / percussion, vocals   Carson Moody / drums, vocal,   Brandon Lopez / bass   Alexander Hawkins / piano    Noah Hecht / additional percussion on "The Clear Realization"  --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook. Mixed by James Dunn. Mastered by James Dunn.  Cover art:    Remo Salvadori Continuous Infinite Present  1985 Steel cable Photo: Jean-Pierre Maurer, Milan Courtesy of the artist

Originally recorded for Philip Glass's private press label Chatham Square and tracked after hours at John Lennon's home studio, Gibson's 1973 LP "Visitations" is a minimalist masterpiece. Performing with his new group back in September, Gibson re-imagined the piece with modular synthesizers and a digital projection of 16 mm film entitled "One Way" depicting the California desert. Shot by Gibson around the same time as the LP, the film showed seemingly never ending desert landscape of America cascading across the screen - perfectly reflecting the expanse of his fresh take on the unique environmental soundscape of Visitations. --- Jon Gibson / winds Britton Powell / percussion and objects  John Also Bennett / electronics Jeremy Gibson / percussion George Bennett / percussion    ---   Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Friday 15th September by Shaun Crook. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn. Artwork by Oli Barrett.

"Maybe later they will become Settled and clear...But what we had inLondon was absolutely pure Musical survival act,With generous attention of the public." - Sainkho NamtchylakOnce a member of the national ensemble of Tuva, Sainko Namtchylak left the remote republic in the south of Siberia and lived in Moscow. There she met jazz musicians and started a new career - playing and making records with musicians such as Peter Kowald, Joelle Leandre and Evan Parker. After recording Like A Bird Or Spirit, Not A Face with members of Tinariwen last year she has formed a new group, SainkhoKosmos, with the help of reedsman and long-time collaborator Ned Rothenberg. Sainkho's seven octave vocal range combined with an ensemble with such a vast wealth of experience makes for compelling listening - an ancient pulsing within a modern framework. --- Samm Bennett / drums, vocals Sainkho Namtchylak / vocals Ned Rothenberg / clarinet, alto sax, shakuhachi Peter Scherr / electric upright bassKazuhisa Uchihashi / guitar, daxophone --- Recorded on Sunday 6th August 2017 by Tom Mudd. Mixed & mastered by James Dunn. All music improvised by SainkhoKosmos. Original photo by Anton Klimov. Artwork by Oli Barrett.

Delighted to release this fierce first time duo from two of our favourite saxophonists. Brotzmann-esque heft and gritty melodies from Trzaska, fused with Wright's tonal punctuation packs this one full of intensity which escapes the routine.  --- Mikolaj Trzaska / saxophone Seymour Wright / saxophone --- Recorded on Friday 9th December 2016 by Shaun Crook. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn. Photo by Dawid Laskowski. Artwork by Oli Barrett.

The Scorpios performing Eujoaideen live at OTO in January 2016 (NB - this is not the same night as the release)We were delighted to have Sudanese funk group The Scorpios return to OTO after their self titled album came out in spring on Afro 7 - a great new label that focuses on "new and old music from East Africa", so we're especially pleased to make this one available. The collective is made up of Sudanese and European talents based in West London, and together they take a new stance on traditional Sudanese forms. They meld bass synth, horns, percussion and gorgeous vocals to drive new energy into haqibah scales, and though you can hear the influence of Sharhabil and His Band and Abdel Karim el Kably in their mix, they're really pushing it somewhere else. --- Dawid Frydryk / trumpet James Connor / percussion Michael Ofiri / drums
 Ronnie Maxwell / bass Adam Bulewski / rhythm & lead guitar Abdelsalam Kamaleldin / lead and rhythm guitar Ragaia Ishag / vocals Izumi Kobayashi / keys Sue Lynch / sax Ahmed Mohamed Ali Osman / percussion & vocals Karl Amata / percussion --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Adam Matschulat on 23rd June 2017. Mixed & mastered by James Dunn. Original photo by Laurent Orseau. Artwork by Oli Barrett.

Live recording of the debut London performance for the duo of Limpe Fuchs and Evan Parker - two giants of avant garde music. Having met at Fort Process Festival in 2016 and seen each other perform solo in a tiny underground bunker, the two then paired up for a couple of duo concerts - one at OTO, and one in Brighton for Lost Property Arts Collective. Fuchs brings her unique menagerie of sounds to the space - variable wood and stone blocks (marble and serpentinite sourced from Sondrio in Upper Italy), ringing bronze pendulum strings and a variety of skin and bronze drums sound out alongside her own voice and a two toned harmonic violin. Fuch's huge set up, spread out across the stage area and unique to each performance, means the music to develops through movement - as each instrument is played, another is left in silence.  Their duo evolves in phases, navigated by Fuch's movement around the room, and Parker's intuitive  finding of endings, of pauses and of ways to engage with Fuch's personal rhythms is perfect. Surely the beginning of a regular duo? We hope so.  --- Limpe Fuchs / percussion, vocals, violin Evan Parker / saxophone --- Recorded liveat Cafe OTO by James Dunn on Monday 28th May 2017. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn. Artwork by Oli Barrett - original photograph by Edith Stocker.

Delighted to release Brazilian composer-performer Manuel Lima's set from June this year. Features a live re-working of his brilliant release on Editions Verde (EV006: 36 English to Portuguese Lessons), plus some plus new & gold material. Lima works between language, sound & performance to make absurdist cocktail of confusion & absurd recontextalisation. Following randomly generated instructions dictated to him from a Python script, Lima fuses sound from Youtube videos, analogue synthesiser and cassette recorder, alongside English to Portuguese translation phrases to delightful effect. Synonymy slips, and simple translations evolve & mutate to the sound of Jorge Ben, baroque lute and submerged speech.  --- Manuel Lima / analogue synth, mixer, cassette recorder --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Paul Skinner on Friday 30th June, 2017. Mixed and mastered by Manuel Lima.

Release 100 (!!!), and we're really pleased to make Jamal Moss' non-stop 6 hour New Year DJ set available for free. Half the night came out as a double cassette dubbed "The Hieroglyphic Being Experience Vol. 1" last year, but they're all sold out now and they dont seem to include the magic moment Jamal drops "I Feel Love" and re-works it in his unique acid house style. Thanks for your continued support of Cafe OTO, and hpe to see you New Year 2018! --- Jamal Moss / 4 cdjs --- Tracklisting: Part 1 - 2:02:15 Part 2 - 4:08:39 --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Thursday 31st December, 2015 by Shaun Crook. Mixed by Abby Thomas. Artwork by Oli Barratt. Many thanks to Jamal Moss.

Live set from new and extremely good London band who create huge strung-out tracks with minimal kit. Their newest self released 12” should be in your top ten. Recorded in front of about forty people, a bass pawl thrums as the guitar ratchets the room up up up up, before a solo escapes that unzips the atmosphere completely.  “...A bass / drums / guitar trio that play somewhere between DNA de-tuning their instruments before practice or Sightings with the PA system and all their effects turned off.” – Yellow Green Red --- --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Simon Holliday. Mixed by James Dunn and Clive Phillips. Mastered by James Dunn.

Konstrukt's return to OTO after their killer show with regular London guest Alexander Hawkins back in 2015. This time around the band invited Alan Wilkinson and Daniel Spicer to join and form a seven piece ensemble who somehow crammed themselves in behind the monitors. Both multi-intrumentalists, Wilkinson and Spicer brought fresh textures and techniques to the group. From drum & bass and funk lines, to straight free jazz bursts and spiritual chantings, the range of sound in each set is incredible - and all given that classic dose of high energy by the Turkish free giants.  --- Korhan Futaci / alto & tenor saxophones, flutes, sipsi, kaba zurna, voiceUmut Çaglar / electric guitar, gralla, bamboo flutes, pocket drum machine, xylophones, percussion, tape echoBarlas Tan Özemek / electric bassEdiz Hafizoglu / drums, cymbals, bells, turkish hang drum+Alexander Hawkins / acoustic pianoAlan Wilkinson / baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, voiceDaniel Spicer / pocket trumpet, bugle, bamboo saxophone, shenai, recorder, pan pipe, whistle, cow bell, kalimba, voice --- Recorded live at Café OTO by Shaun Crook on September 12th, 2016, London. Mixed and mastered by Umut Çaglar in Istanbul, Turkey. Artwork by Oli Barrett. Original Photo by Dawid Laskowski. We wish to thank Brighton Alternative Jazz Festival for inviting Konstrukt to the UK, and to Omlott recordings for their enthusiasm putting out the physical version of the recording, which you can purchase here.

Myriad interwoven textural fractures from Grace & Delete - aka no-screen laptop wizard James Dunn and bass clarinet boss Chris Cundy. "Dunn’s electronics are a masterclass in the resources of outdated technology. After being exposed to so much laptop texturing, the ear appreciates its limits. The electronics give Cundy’s contributions a jagged starkness, like coming upon a crude screenprint in an exhibition of digital printouts. The musicians are fully in control of their pitches and the music often proceeds by finding a harmony and then forcing it into crisis, unbearable tensions resolved into rhythmic exchange. Cundy also uses a Tinnitus Analyser to detect noises and elevate them into audibility. This provides the musicians with a stimulating randomness - the difference between the unexpected shapes generated by looking and drawing rather than simply doodling and reproducing habit, the eversame." - Ben Watson  In The Screwtape Letters C.S Lewis defines music as a "meaningless acceleration in the rhythm of celestial experience," but it can also be a sped up inferno complete with the alien cries of the damned. Either way, the cat cannot get enough. She rolls on her back and flashes her claws in the air when this music plays. She is blown away by the concept of a bass clarinet; the longer a note lasts, the more she purrs; it seems to stretch her actual perception of time. She wriggles with pleasure; she twists and switches her tail; she forgets to close her mouth over her thirsty pink tongue. "Tinnitus!" she mews, "I have it! Come closer!" --- Chris Cundy / bass clarinet, alien toy James Dunn / electronics, tinnitus analyser ---   --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Paul Skinner on Friday 9th June. Mixed & mastered by James Dunn. Words by Patricia Lockwood - Priestdaddy

Duo from regular good guy Sholto Dobie (Mucklemouth) and Alvaro Daguer of Chile’s Glorias Navales (Kye Records). Sholto's on diatonic symphony hurdy gurdy, and Alvaro picks up his Casio SA-1 - a monophonic old school number. After playing together for the first time that morning (Sholto had kindly put Alvaro's band up) the pair decided they play the support slot that night. The two instruments meld surprisingly well, and what follows is a melancholic, minimal and lo-fi lament in the key of Conrad or Cale. "In April, Alvaro and his brother Ivan (from Santiago, Chile) were touring Europe with their group Glorias Navales. They stayed one night at my house in Lewisham, we had fava beans for breakfast and afterwards me and Alvaro ended up playing music for a short time together in my kitchen. To us, it sounded fresh and we decided to perform together that night (the result of which is kindly documented here!). I named it 'Cat's Foot' after a symbol used in eastern european and russian embroidery - the flatness of the instrumentation and repetition of simple forms reminded me of weaves. The shimmering drones notes of the mechanical instruments - one acoustic and one electronic - create an wavy 'moire'-like effect. Although, weaving patterns would suggest structure, this music ambles, without any strict rhythm, agenda or narrative - a cat's foot is also playful!"     Sholto, July 2017 --- Sholto Dobie / hurdy gurdy Alvaro Daguer / keyboard --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Wednesday 12th April 2017 by Shaun Crook. Mixed & mastered by Mr J T Dunn. Artwork by Oli Barrett.  ---

Metaphoric, historical but also just as easily enjoyed without any context at all, Laura Cannell's approach to fiddle and recorder has echoes of medieval tradition with a folk vernacular. Recorded on the first night of her series ‘Modern Ritual’, her set framed an evening which evoked both real and fictional landscapes and explored ideas of ritual through music and words. Singling out tracks from her first and third records (Quick Sparrows Over The Black Earth and Simultaneous Flight Movement respectively), Cannell draws a chapter from her work based on ritual - both natural and supernatural. Overbowing the fiddle and dual blowing recorder, she blurs fiction with history and conjures a new kind of Black Hour - a melodic two tone drone which is both tame and wild, and the image of a Sacristan drowned in his own font. --- Laura Cannell / fiddle, recorders --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook on Friday 17th March 2017. Mixed by James Dunn & Laura Cannell. Mstered by James Dunn. Lino print by Laura Cannell.

Last year we invited flutist, composer and educator Nicole Mitchell to make her London debut at OTO. Though originally lined up to play with semi frequent collaborator Joelle Leandre, Joelle had to pull out at the last minute. Instead, we asked Mark Sanders if he would like to play. Having never met before, Mark’s restrained approach to the kit, with skipping brushes on toms and light touches to a ride, a bell or wooden blocks gives remarkable space and air to Mitchell’s unique synthesis of flute and voice. Together they create  a strikingly sparse and minimal sound, but one which is no less full of joyous melodic hooks and grooves reminiscent of a stripped back Art Ensemble.  --- Nicole Mitchell / flute, voice Mark Sanders / percussion --- Tracklisting: 1. One - 24:10 2. Two - 7:18 3. Three - 10:34 --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Saturday 14th May, 2016 by James Dunn. Mixed & mastered by James Dunn.

Totally brilliant set from local legends Pat Thomas & Orphy Robinson (Black Top). Scuzzy electronics, dub bass rhythms and Pat's perfectly timed acoustic interludes on keys fuse with heavy vocal samples to produce a truly diasporic sound. Sounds like a walk down Ridley Road market soundtracked by Thelonius Monk and Jamal Moss.  "When you arrive in England there should be a bus or a trainline you can catch to your hotel. Getting from one side of London to the other should cost you no more than your entire life savings or first born child. If possible, try not to eat the food. If you really must then your safest bet is battered swan, chicken pyramids or tea pie - which is a pie with tea in it. The English brain is divided into two hemispheres - the left which produces spheres of shame and self loathing, and the right, which produces spheres of shame and self loathing." --- Pat Thomas / piano, keyboard, iPad Orphy Robinson / vibes, xylosynth, cajon, iPad, laptop & effects --- samples from: 1/ 'Hugh Masekela in discussion "We're bad imitations of those who oppressed us..." 2/ Willie Williams- Stand Up (Jah Shaka)  3/ Exurb1a England a beginners guide...   --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Tuesday, April 17th 2017 by Shaun Crook. Mixed & mastered by James Dunn. Photo by Dawid Laskowski.