Reissue, originally released on FMP in 1979. Personnel: Peter Brötzmann - alto and tenor saxophone, E flat clarinet, A clarinet, bass clarinet; Misha Mengelberg - piano, voice; Han Bennink - drums, tenor saxophone, clarinet etc. Recorded by Jost Gebers on February 26th, 1979 at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. Produced by Peter Brötzmann and Jost Gebers. Cover design by Peter Brötzmann. Photograph by Roberto Masotti. Remastered by Martin Siewert in 2021. 180 gram vinyl.

Cien Fuegos presents a reissue of Peter Brötzmann's 14 Love Poems, recorded and first released by FMP in 1984. Inspired by a poetry booklet by Kenneth Patchen (from which it takes it‘s title), this album focuses on expression and emotion. "A monument of post-free solo reeds playing and a stunning item in Peter Brötzmann's discography, 14 Love Poems is arguably the German saxophonist and clarinetist's strongest, most compelling solo statement. Recorded and first released by FMP in 1984, this LP showcases the full scope of the man's art and presents it in a form much more enticing than what you'd expect. This album focuses on expression and emotion instead of virility or power (two terms often used to describe Brötzmann's playing). If 14 Love Poems can be dubbed "the softer side of Peter Brötzmann," it is by no mean a collection of watered-down solos. On the contrary, one finds all the energy, ferociousness, and angst the man is rightfully known for, but his palette of feelings is stretched out to also include tenderness, elevation, and beatitude. The opening "NR. 1" (no titles, just numbers) is in fact a tempered, delicate rendition of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" on baritone sax. All the other pieces are freely improvised. They are all short (nothing over five and a half minutes), and the track list emphasizes mood swings and instrument swapping. In the course of the original album's 50 minutes, Brötzmann plays baritone; tenor and alto saxes; A, E flat, and bass clarinets; and tarogato. The range of instruments, emotions, and techniques (from straightforward melody to sound-breath techniques, circular breathing, split tones, etc.) produces a very rich, diverse, and ultimately endearing album. These pieces were recorded during the original sessions, August 21-23, 1984. Despite the fact that they don't add to the album (in terms of sound palette or techniques), they are just as lovely and striking as the pieces originally released -- not leftovers at all. This album is essential to understand the solo albums later recorded by John Butcher, Alessandro Bosetti, and the like. "Highly recommended. 10/10"  AllMusicGuide --- Peter Brötzmann / alto, tenor & baritone saxophone, a-,e-flat & bass clarinet, tarogato --- Cover by Peter Brötzmann. Producer: Jost Gebers, Peter Brötzmann. Mix: Jost Gebers, Peter Brötzmann.All compositions by Peter Brötzmann, except Lonely Woman by Ornette Coleman. Recorded and first released by FMP in 1984

REVIEWS "The edges of Schlippenbach’s trio/quartet music have gradually feathered over the past dozen years, a process benchmarked by “Anticlockwise”. Evan Parker’s careening tenor prompts a dramatic sweep from the group that echoes Coltrane’s last period, as on Ore; his multiphonic-oriented soprano style elicits a more spiky rapport. The exceptional American bassist Alan Silva makes an intriguing debut with the quartet, his incisive phrasing and nuance-filled arco technique serving as a lynchpin between Schlippenbach’s densities and Loven’s asymmetries." - Bill Shoemaker, CODA Evan Parker: soprano & tenor saxophone Alexander von Schlippenbach: piano Alan Silva: double bass Paul Lovens: drums, percussion

In 1961 Sun Ra took off from Chicago – where he had established the Arkestra, his dedicated ensemble and the vehicle for his mission to better the planet – and with a scaled-down version of the band he landed in NewYork. Their first recording session was in Newark in October of that year. The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra, recorded for the Savoy label, is a beautiful document of the material they'd honed during a long residency at the Wonder Inn at the end of the Chicago period. Among tracks left in the vault from that day in the studio were these two great ballads sung by Ricky Murray, both of them redolent of the bright popcraft that had long been part of Ra's repertoire, with classic Afrofuturist themes of navigating outer space and altered destiny cloaked in sweet songs with tart arrangements. This 7-inch vinyl single is limited to 1000 copies, with full-color cover including a rare photo of the band with Ricky Murray. --- Released: Corbett vs Dempsey

Globe Unity is available on vinyl CvsDLP003 and CD CvsDCD091 In 1966, pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach assembled his first large ensemble to play his compositions “Globe Unity” and “Sun.” This 14-piece band, which brought together some of the leading figures in European improvised music, would eventually expand – incorporating not only Europeans but also American and Asian musicians – and assume its rightful name: Globe Unity Orchestra. In its nascent outing, beautifully recorded at Ariola Studio in Cologne, Schlippenbach’s band was already sensational, performing at various festivals and solidifying the reputations of some of its star players. Most notably among these was a 25-year-old saxophonist named Peter Brötzmann, whose whole band – saxophonist Kris Wanders, drummer Mani Neumeier, and bassist Peter Kowald, the latter of whom would for a period assume nominal leadership of Globe Unity – was incorporated into the large Schlippenbach group. Globe Unity was Brötzmann’s first outing on LP. Kowald’s too. And future drum heroes of the krautrock genre, Neumeier (with Guru Guru) and Jaki Liebezeit (with Can) constitute the incredible rhythm section. If you factor in German early-free-music mainstays Gunter Hampel (here on flute and bass clarinet, no vibes), trumpeter Manfred Schoof, bassist Buschi Niebergall, and tenor saxophonist Gerd Dudek, Dutch saxophonist and clarinetist Willem Breuker, French trumpeter Claude Deron, the enormity of the band’s potential becomes apparent. Add Schlippenbach himself, an absolute cyclone on the piano as well as prominent tubular bells and gong, and the global scene is set. Schlippenbach’s unique position at the time, as one of the foremost players in German free music, but also as a rising young composer who’d studied with Bernd Alois Zimmermann, allowed him to serve as exactly the right conduit for several approaches to creative music, from introducing his graphically notated scores to making a perfect context for the debuts of future star improvisors Brötzmann and Kowald.Schlippenbach’s Globe Unity was first issued on SABA in 1967, then MPS a couple of years after that. It has long been out of print and has only ever appeared on CD in a tiny Japanese version published in 1999. Corbett vs. Dempsey is reissuing this classic record in a special, strictly limited edition of 500 vinyl LPs and 1000 CDs, with a faithful facsimile of the original LP’s gatefold cover. The music was remastered from the original tapes and is licensed directly from MPS. Anyone interested in the history of improvised music needs to hear Globe Unity, which retains a sense of urgency 56 years after it was waxed. Track List: 1. Globe Unity 20’122. Sun 20’34 Musicians: Manfred Schoof Claude Deron Willi Lietzmann Peter Brötzmann Gerd Dudek Kris Wanders Willem Breuker Gunter Hampel Karlhanns Berger Buschi Niebergall Peter Kowald Jaki Liebzeit Mani Neumeier Aleaxander von Schlippenbach Produced by: Joachim E. Berendt Recording director: Willi Fruth Engineer: Gert Lemnitz Recorded December 6th and 7th, 1966 at Ariola Studio Cologne Cover painting: “C 12” by Henry Garde Photos: Uwe Oldenberg Cover design and layout: Gigi Berendt Compositions by Alexander von Schlippenbach

Original deadstock copies of 46,000 Fibres’ ‘Reconstructed’, an album released on short-lived South London label Dyscfunctional in 1999. 46,000 Fibres are a UK-based improvisational group, formed in 1993 out of a group called Koven-oe, which included Robin Rimbaud (aka Scanner). When he left, the remaining trio of Richard Clarke, Tonal Davidson (aka Tonal D) and Leon Maurice-Jones decided to switch from structured material to explore electro-acoustic free improvisation. The idea was not to arrange or talk about the music but to rely on the musical telepathy between them and, without resorting to cliches, create ‘something unique’. The results ranged from ethereal delicacy to hard industrial, space rock, gamelan stylings, radical jazz, dark funk and their forte of sonic soundscapes. The line-up for the group was often fluid, though with a core of Tonal D & Leon Maurice-Jones. Musicians who they’ve collaborated with over the many past years include Nik Turner, Lol Coxhill, Scanner and Ashley Wales. In 1999 they put out three live albums as part of their fifth anniversary together. Later that year, they released ‘Reconstructed’, an album where band members and guests were invited to sample moments from their improvisations to make something a bit more coherent and more for the contemporary dance/club scene. Placing this album in their catalogue, it’s certainly their most commercial outing and could be viewed as their nod to the 90s chillout scene. In any case, it doesn’t take much to imagine how chilled an album put together by a bunch of misfit experimental jazz improvisers might be… Some of the tracks are up on YouTube, though a few of the best are not..

Anthony’s post-Slapp Happy output, for years an underrated-to-outright unknown quantity, achieves a new dimensional plane with this third archival release from his personal tape library. Home of the Demo triangulates upon the art-pop qualities found in his previously unreleased 1976 LP OUT, and ‘79’s new wave-adjacent Flying Doesn’t Help, finding Anthony’s early/mid-80s home recordings drifting whimsically in and out of the actual mainstream.

Net of Atoms is a new album from Otis Jordan, drawing closely from the previous two albums for Them There - Dodger Point (2020) and Restless Guests (2022) - Jordan delivers his most ambitious and well articulated full length work to date, perfectly rounding off a trio of releases for the label. The Glasgow based band leader has remained active since his last outing for Them There with contributions to the ongoing research project Folklore Tapes’ most recent V/A compilations and a split tape for the nascent ‘Ceremonial County’ series on the label. Most notably and surprising perhaps was his recent collaboration with Sam Mcloughlin’s Hood Faire imprint ‘Early Experiments in Recording Vol 1 (1976 - 2021)’ - a compilation which Jordan curated that unearthed early recordings from a slew of experimental heads and many now renowned in their field musicians. More so than ever before, the songs on Net of Atoms stomp sure-footedly through the meandering instrumental textures of Otis Jordan’s vivid musical landscape. Ever off-kilter and unpredictable - violin motifs, clarinet themes and hammered found sounds disappear into the mist as suddenly as they arrived leaving behind breadcrumbs to be picked back up later. Recurring variations on melodic themes act as waymarks through the webs of rhythms and resonance as each short scene side-steps into a new tempo and timbre rewarding repeat listens. “This is the most ‘song’ based album I’ve ever made, with vocals on nearly all of the tracks” says Jordan - and the voice does also help guide the listener, although the vocal lines remain linear and consistently curious, rarely repeating. Instrumentally, any given moments can swiftly abscond from smokey Jazz feels to Captain Beefheart-y low-key Psych and freeform Folk ditties recalling the early noughts ‘Twisted Nerve’ jams of Aidan Smith and frequent collaborator Samandtheplants. All the while compounded by a restless forward drive that seems determined to explore the furthest reaches of this exotic sound world. Once again Jordan assembles a multitude of esteemed musician friends for the assignment. Many of the players from the ‘Restless Guests’ live session return including the nimble Moondog-esque percussive touches of Finn Rosenbaum, locally renowned virtuoso DBH offers up some violin and Lost Map’s Molly Linen returns to lend her dulcet, whispered tones on the track ‘Pendle Hill Conversation’. New friends such as Manchester's legendary DIY enthusiast Paddy Steer and the trumpeter Hermon Mehari also feature across the album. For the most part however, Jordan records and composes these crafty, intricate records himself in true DIY style across various home studios from Todmorden to Glasgow and shows no signs of slowing down.  Finn Rosenbaum - drums (4) Hermon Mehari - trumpet (4,14) Ike Goldman - vocals, glockenspiel, guitar and musical saw (7) Molly Linen - vocals (8) Dan Bridgwood-Hill - violin (8,11) Paddy Steer - lap steel (11) Zola Mooney - words and vocals (11, also end of 2) Sam McLoughlin - electric guitar, bass and keyboard (11,12) Marley Moat - violin (12) Other instruments played by Otis Jordan

We’re delighted to announce the triumphant return of Steve Marreyt, aka Edgar Wappenhalter. Here he reverts to making gritty reverb-drenched folksongs. But the poetic and electronic elements from his previous album remain – they’re just incorporated in the songs this time. It makes ‘Ijsschots Veenlaag Mist’ probably Wappenhalter’s most balanced work thusfar. Songs like ‘Hallusineren’ or ‘Vogel rok diamant’ prove he’s one of the best intuitive songwriters around, whereas In het bos (1) and (2) demonstrate his mastery in creating soundcollages as well. Best of all: he switches between them effortless, and he makes sure the listener doesn’t get lost along the way. The album is a tribute to the work of the Dutch poet Sonja Prins (1912-2009) - which explains why the titles are in Dutch, and this is the first morc-release with Dutch lyrics only. However, this is not just ‘poems set to music’ Steve uses the poems more as an inspiration, not as the foundation of the songs. Also good to know: ‘Hallusineren’ features guest vocals by Annelies Monseré (Luster), a longtime collaborator of Steve. And the original artwork is drawn by Olivier Schrauwen, one of Steve’s favorite comic book artists, who shares a very similar aesthetic. Is IJsschots Veenlaag Mist a full package? It sure is.

soccer Committee has always been an consistent exercise in restraint, and offering space. And on ‘♥ /Lamb’, this approach has been taken to perfection. The arrangements are still minimal, with plenty of time for the tones and melodies to resonate with maximum impact. Mariska Baars still carefully selects each note, and lets the sound evolve with precise care. Her songs are definitely rooted in the folktradition, but at the same time very ‘ambient’, in the true sense of the word.And still: there’s a bit of a different approach here, compared with her earlier work. Tracks like ‘No turn to harm’ and ‘Reaching’ have a few very subtle extra layers added. Aride Afar starts out as Baar’s most distorted work thusfar – she even asked the help of Wouter Van Veldhoven to add a tape loop recording, and that works remarkably well: the track balances on the edge of disintigration, but it takes a master like Baars to keep it together. And then soccer Committee takes another leap in the dark: the B-side opens with ‘Imagining you in the room’. This mostly acapella song stands as Baars' longest composition thus far. Yet not a single tone is redundant, and Baars deliveres it so skillful and humble that it feels like a symphony on its own. After that: just one more track, and you’re ready to re-listen the album. On ‘♥ / Lamb’, you can feel the unwavering focus of Baars so present that it’s sheer impossible not to focus as a listener yourself. But what makes Baars so otherworldly is her gift to still make it sound comforting and reassuring rather than demanding for attention. ♥/ Lamb is an invitation you’re more than happy to accept.  Vocals, guitars, recordings mix and effects by Mariska BaarsBowed Guitar and additional tape loop recording on Aride Afar by Wouter van Veldhoven

Born in France and currently residing in Brussels, Roxane Métayer is truly a multidisciplinary artist. Learning the violin at a young age, she also developed herself as a visual artist, creating drawings, sculptures in uncommon materials as soap, and in recent years video. Her work as a musician is of an equally spontaneous nature.Though Éclipse des Ocelles is her debut album, she’s been quite active the past couple of years, in the duo’s Gebogen Ogen and Sage Alyte (with whom she released an lp on Vlek early in 2021)On her first solo lp, Roxane Métayer fully explores the sonic possibilities of the violin, field recordings and folk oriented orchestration and melodies. The violin is often taking the melodic lead, but at the same time serves a drone background, but just as much a percussion instrument. In any case: the focus is definitely on the sound itself.She’s not afraid to use effects, minimal percussion, whistles and the occasional hushed vocal to expand the sonic palette to a maximum effect, resulting in multilayered, semi-improvised and subtle meanderings, gently evolving around a tight core.

ten years in the making, finally the debut album of this belgian sextet with members of Mote, Joe Speedboat and Annelies Monseré arrives. Cello, flute, harmonium and violin blend in with the traditional guitar-bass-drums trio – making them land on a unique spot at the crossroad where ancestral doom folk, heady dronerock and spacious pop seamlessly meet. Often repetive, always mesmerizing and evocative. Kind of the missing link between Mazzy Star, Pentangle, Broadcast and Enhet for Fri Musik.Comes in a stylish screenprinted and letterpressed sleeve. Luster are Elisabeth Cornille, Lobke D’Hespeel, Julie Lafontaine, Annelies Monseré, Jelle Vanlerberghe and Yumi Verplancke

“Iguzki Hauskara by Pascal Gaigne, combines Basque Folk oral tradition, Spanish guitar and Contemporary Classical minimal compositions in equal parts. Beautifully haunting, wondrous and expansive, this record speaks to the spirit. A timeless document that befits situations and sceneries that existed long before this record was made. A pivotal moment in Pascal’s career, highest possible recommendation for fans of 80’s counterpart instrumentalists like Luis Paniagua, Wim Mertens’s Soft Verdict, Albert Gimenez or Pep Llopis” Pascal Gaigne, born in France in 1958 and installed in San Sebastian since 1985, is a musician with a vast trajectory composing music for films. He has composed for more than 50 movies, won 16 awards (including a Goya award, Spanish Oscar equivalent) and had 15 nominations. He has worked with some of the most interesting new directors in Spanish cinema (Víctor Erice, Icíar Bolláin, Salvador García Ruíz, Daniel Sánchez Arévalo, Montxo Armendáriz), and foreign directors like France (Le cou de la girafe), Finland (Matka Edeniin) or Cuba (Omerta). Early in his career, before working in cinema, he collaborated with some of the most interesting artists and voices in the short history of Basque folk music, including well known Amaia Zubiria (check the two records he made with her “Egun Argi Hartan” & “Kolorez eta Ametsez”), as well as Basque traditional chant avant-gardist Beñat Achiary. It is together with Amaia & Beñat that he paired himself up to create “music pour le ballet du Iguzki Hauskara”, an entire album of compositions made for the 80’s French Basque Ballet group “Ekarle”. Originally released on cassette only in 1984, it is now reissued by Hegoa including three unreleased pieces taken from a second album that was never published. Limited edition of 250 black vinyl LP’s housed in a coloured reversed cover recreating the original hand painted artwork.

Jim Strong is a US based artist and musician who in recent years has left a trail of enigmatic releases on labels such as Vitrine, More Mars and Chocolate Monk. He will also be familiar to some for his past work with Melkings, Eyes of the Amaryllis, and Weyesblood. Now HoP is pleased to announce Jim’s first solo vinyl outing. My Enemies Are Mine To Keep is Jim’s most clearly defined statement to date. Its sides illustrate his self-sufficient, world-building methods through a mixture of orchestral miniatures and eerie, haptic pop songs fashioned from the artists home-made and invented instruments. The attention to process does not over-shadow Jim’s commitment to making deeply affecting, human work. With his unique mechanical orchestra wheezing behind him, Jim’s heartfelt vocals (plus a duet with long-time collaborator, Natalie Mering / Weyesblood) guide listeners through themes of futurity and isolation observing, among other things; the macrocosms of a break up; the discovery of a dead body in a sleepy beach town; and an angel measuring the shape of God. My Enemies Are Mine To Keep’s unique sound palette & approach to songcraft make comparisons futile but if we have to we’ll say Joe Meek, Harry Partch, Voice Crack, & The Incredible String Band. Capiche?

Jordan Deal’s 2022 debut GOGO Underworld (Cor Ardens) hipped us to their multidisciplinary practice which shapeshifts across film, sculpture, sound & performance. Now we are proud to present the next chapter in Jordan’s recorded legacy. Seas of Triple Consciousness was recorded between monasteries & churches in rural France and Jordan’s home in Philadelphia. It takes cues from the gospel, blues and folk traditions as well as avant-garde composition techniques. Essentially a song-suite centred around grand piano with occasional percussion, harmonica, field recordings and guitar, the album starts with a world collapsing before presenting the listener with an imagined future where Jordan channels a series of personae traversing a surreal landscape inhabited by the victims of oppressive forces. With plaintive, soulful and fragile expressions of defiance, nostalgia and hope Jordan’s jaw-dropping creation is as mind-bending as it is familiar. For comparisons try Nina Simone, Moor Mother, & Julius Eastman. It’s after the end of the world! Don’t you know that yet?

In 1969 both Anthony Moore and the filmmaker David Larcher were at the start of their respective careers and both were inspired by the ideas of the avant garde and the new technologies becoming available to them. David experimented with the various techniques being explored in the medium of film making and Anthony tested the limits of what could be done with tape recorders. It was an open and co-operative exploration. The results of their first collaboration was the film Mare’s Tail - an unusually long 2:30 hour film of non linear multi layered audio visual collage filmed in a wide variety of locations interspersed with texts coming from readings and talks, Kabalistic texts, recorded phone calls, loops, children’s voices and other found material. The musical dimension is mainly supplied by various struck objects/noise/feedback/field recordings and samples. There are instruments too and we even get treated to a small section of what was to become a Slapp Happy tune. The blurry dreamscape/nightmare that slowly unfolds is laden with late 60s delirium. The original master tapes are long gone and all that remains is the audio track on existing copies of the film and various bits of the make up tapes, most of which were used (but some not), in the final cut. The low grade 16mm audio track (a degraded source to begin with), is further worn with age, subsequent duplication and repeated screenings. It all adds to the haze - a quality that David would have most likely approved. Edition of 500 numbered copies.

Black Truffle is thrilled to present the first vinyl reissue of David Rosenboom’s unique Future Travel, originally released on the short-lived Detroit label Street Records in 1981 and here presented in an expanded edition with an additional LP of wild, previously unheard live and studio material from the same period. Future Travel emerged from the confluence of two important streams in Rosenboom’s work at this time. First, his exploration of ‘propositional music’, defined as ‘complete cognitive models of music’ that start from the radical question, ‘What is music?’ In this case, the music belongs to the universe of Rosenboom’s In the Beginning (1978-1981), in which proportional relationships determine the material available to the composer in all musical parameters (harmonic relationships, melodic shapes, rhythmic subdivisions, dynamics, and so on). Second, the work documents a key moment in Rosenboom’s long collaboration with synthesizer pioneer Don Buchla. Having played a role in developing concepts for some of the modules of the Buchla 300 Series Electric Music Box (an innovative analogue modular system controlled by micro-processors), Rosenboom went on to write the software for Buchla’s hybrid analogue-digital keyboard synthesiser, the Touché, the instrument heard most prominently here. In a way that no purely analogue synthesizer could, the 300 Series and Touché allowed Rosenboom to work with the In the Beginning algorithms in real time, the synthesizers becoming ‘intelligent instruments’ that actively collaborate with the performer. Developing the open structures of the electronic pieces from In the Beginning, Future Travel explored the possibilities of simply ‘playing the system’, recording live at Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope studio in San Francisco. Working from loose sketches, Rosenboom added acoustic instruments to the electronic sounds and, on some pieces, the processed voice of Jacqueline Humbert. Like Rosenboom’s collaboration with Humbert on the abstracted synth-chanson of Daytime Viewing, this music set out deliberately to challenge the ‘stratified and illusorily coagulated identities in the musical culture of the time,’ refusing distinctions between ‘serious’ and popular music. But where Daytime Viewing achieves this in part through genre references, Future Travel is bracingly sui generis, existing in a unique universe where radical formalisation à la Xenakis spontaneously gives rise to expressive jazz harmonies and old-timey folk melodies. The crystalline quality of many of the Touché sounds gives Future Travel a sparkling, immediately enticing surface, its layers of shifting ostinato patterns pulsating outside conventional meter, rippling like waves on the surface of water. On opener ‘Station Oaxaca’, ping-ponging synth arpeggios and hand percussion accompany a sentimental violin melody, abruptly overtaken by layered keyboard runs, before the entry of tinkling marimba-like sounds reframe the scene as sci-fi Martin Denny exotica. ‘Time Arroyo’ begins as an austere study in staccato synth sounds in multiple overlapping tempi, reminiscent of Ligeti’s famous ‘clock’ rhythmic effects. Before long, it opens up into a melodic passage with the gentle heroism of classic Roedelius, which proves to be only a brief interlude before the layers of rhythmically distinct synthesiser patterns begin to build and accelerate into an increasingly dense cacophony. The wildest twists and turns are saved for the epic closer ‘Nova Wind’, where the arrangement focuses on Rosenboom’s virtuoso piano playing, perfectly embodying the project’s radical disregard of stylistic orthodoxies as he moves from hyperactive pointillistic flurries to a kind of space-age gospel. At several points throughout the record, the distinctive voice of Jacqueline Humbert is heard reading passages from the text component of In the Beginning, a dialogue between The Double (an embodiment of humanity’s timeless desire to replicate itself in spiritual and technological copies) and two Spirit Characters. Fittingly, as all are conceived as embodiments of a future form of techno-human collective consciousness, distinctions between the three characters are not immediately evident in Humbert’s delivery, just as the music blurs the boundaries between intelligent computing and human spontaneity. Adorned with a striking retro-futurist cover (and here accompanied by extensive new liner notes and archival images), Future Travel is a time capsule of radical imaginings at the birth of our digital age, reminding us of utopian possibilities of which our own present seems so often to fall short.

crys cole returns to Black Truffle with Making Conversation, her third solo release for the label. After the intimate song-like constructions of Other Meetings (BT096), Making Conversation documents a different facet of cole’s work, presenting three rigorously conceptualised commissioned pieces, each of which extend her signature approach to highly amplified small sounds into new directions. The side-long title piece is a stereo version of an 8-channel sound installation exhibited in 2023 at the Tabakalera Art Center in Donostia / San Sebastian, Spain. The piece uses a multitude of instrumental, vocal, concrete and electronic sounds to evoke the soundscapes cole encountered during nocturnal listening session in Bali, Indonesia in 2018 and 2019. In this world of night sounds, she explains, she ‘observed the complex interplay between amphibian, lizard, bird and insect communication, domestic animals (roosters, dogs), man-made sounds (airplanes, vehicles, conversations and evening activities) and sounds that were difficult to place’. Drawing on field recordings as memory aids (but including none in the finished piece), cole’s piece uncannily reproduces the spatiality and pacing of environmental sound without attempting strictly to replicate it. We hear insect-like twittering and birdsong fragments, resonant thuds and distant roars, furtive crunches and taps, muffled breath and metallic scrapes. While at times it can be difficult to imagine the source of these sounds, at other points they are clearly instrumental or electronic in origin; in its placement and layering, though, the whole assemblage suggests the glorious, unthinking richness of a non-musical sound environment. Suggesting at once the electronic gardens of Rolf Julius and the little instrument expanses of classic AACM, the piece is a brilliant enactment of the Cagean drive to ‘imitate nature in her manner of operation’. ‘Valid ForeverrRrrRRrrr… (pt. 1)’ began as cole’s contribution to an Issue Project Room commission to realise a score from Alison Knowles and Annea Lockwood’s Women´s Work, a 1975 collection of text and conceptual scores by women artists and composers. cole’s piece begins from Beth Anderson’s Valid for Life, a complex arrangement of the letter R in various typefaces. Where the composer suggests a realisation on a trio of acoustic instruments (playing rolls with velvet beaters), cole translates the piece into her characteristic sound and object language as a trio of rolling sounds on ‘two large similar paper things and one 5-pin bowling ball’. Rolling from one side of the stereo field to the other, the bowling ball’s uneven movement is the heart of this immersive textural array, created with the simplest materials, which generates phantom sensations of pitch and phasing effects solely through amplified friction. On ‘Valid ForeverrRrrRRrrr… (pt. 2)’, cole makes a first foray in translating her signature approach into conventional instrumental sounds, here in the form of a transcription for MIDI percussion ensemble. The result is refreshingly puzzling, comparable perhaps only to the sparsest moments of Keiji Haino’s classic “C’est parfait…” Accompanied with extensive liner notes, photographic documentation and a download code, Making Conversation is an exciting next step in cole’s work, extending her signature concerns in new sonic and conceptual directions.