O’Rourke’s process – sourcing resonant sounds to enmesh together into a music that supersedes their resident parts – makes a fitting soundtrack for Kyle Armstrong’s “prairie gothic” tale of down-on-the-farm horror way up north in Canada. His minimalist score inhabits the wide open, big sky landscape, flowing into suddenly-deep (and opaque) emotional waters, then panning out to a chilly omniscient remove.

2023 marks the 35th year of Idea Fire Company’s ongoing commitment to the radical avant-garde. To mark the occasion, Horn of Plenty is proud to present the band’s latest campaign statement Bathroom Electronics. IFCO’s core members are Scott Foust and Karla Borecky who operate from rural Massachusetts. Early despatches came via Scott’s Swill Radio imprint alongside titles by The Shadow Ring, RLW, and Asmus Tietchens. The last decade or so has seen them work with other notable labels including Kye, Recital, Feeding Tube and Ultra Eczema. Early IFCO releases included mission statements like the Anti-Naturals manifesto where they outlined their pursuit of a new total-aesthetic to challenge the ongoing pervasion of the Spectacle. Their growing catalogue, although honouring these early intentions, also nodded to the sacrifices undertaken in their pursuit. References to being Lost At Sea, or coming Live From The Impossible Salon acknowledged a wry sense of resignation and a dogged romanticism. By avoiding sequencers, computers and overdubs and focussing on drawing the most from their instruments and recording equipment their music carries a seductively human character that allows the music to breathe and puts the listener in the room with the band. Although rooted in their formative post-punk / early industrial years, IFCO have incorporated kosmische, minimalism, jazz, classical and avant-garde techniques into their always-the-same-but-always-different sound. Staying true to an original concept yet constantly pushing it in new directions is no easy task but IFCO can claim the mantle and show no signs of tiring. On Bathroom Electronics Scott and Karla are joined on two of the four tracks by long-term compadres Matt Krefting and Timothy Shortell. As the title implies, the LP consists of electronic instruments recorded in bathrooms. The stark interior certainly plays a role here. Side A’s three tracks have a compellingly unsettling and claustrophobic feel. Side B’s The End of the Line (alternative versions of which appeared on a limited Recital tape in 2018) feels like a long, ambiguous goodbye. It’s what not said here that speaks the loudest though, this is much more of an odyssey than a comfort break. Bathroom Electronics marks IFCO’s 35th year in confident and uncompromising fashion. Here's to the next 35 years and, as ever, here’s to love!

Early acoustic guitar improv performances from the Bhutanese expat, who’d come to Asheville, NC to study in 2000 and discovered worlds of anarcho-punk and avant garde such as he’d only dreamed. Having made recordings of his newly-located improvisational conception, he intuited a desire to go deeper in his explorations of the recorded sound of the guitar, melding and colliding traditional music with his feeling for the range of textures within. All tracks except "April" recorded by Flora Wolpert Checknoff and Michael Flanagan, Nov. 2012 Lipinsky Studio. "April" recorded by Dorji, at home, Nov. 2012 Artwork by Luciann Waldrup aka Housefire

vinyl copies have a seem split on top, and are marked down / cheap to reflect that Black Truffle is pleased to announce The Leisure Principle, a new solo LP from London-based bassist and sound artist Otto Willberg. A key player in the London underground, Willberg is often heard on acoustic and electric bass in free improv settings and bands with Laurie Tompkins (Yes Indeed) and Charles Hayward (Abstract Concrete), as well as the fractured No Wave unit Historically Fucked. His previous solo releases have ranged from extended technique double bass to explorations of the acoustics of a 19th century artillery fort. But nothing Willberg has committed to wax so far prepares a listener for The Leisure Principle, six unashamedly melodic improvisational workouts created almost entirely with heavily filtered bass harmonica and electric bass.On the opening ‘Reap What Thou Sow’, a single-note bass harmonica loop pulses along underneath a roaming bass solo, the side-chained envelope filtering (where the dynamic behaviour of the bass determines the filter for both bass and harmonica) fusing the two instruments into a single stream of burbling shifts in resonance. After several minutes of patient exploration of this low-end landscape, the music suddenly opens up in widescreen with the entrance of Sam Andreae’s graceful melodica chords, spreading out across the stereo field. From this epic opener, each of the remaining pieces goes on to explore a slightly different aspect of the terrain. On ‘Shadow Came into the Eyes as Earth Turned on its Axis’, a similarly buoyant harmonica bass line provides the foundation, but this time playing a soulful descending riff, its almost R&B; feel abstracted and half-obscured by the filtering. On ‘Mollusk’, echoed bass arpeggios skitter between elegiac chords somewhat reminiscent of the opening of John Abercrombie’s ‘Timeless’, before settling into a hypnotic groove.On the record’s second half, Willberg pushes further into the possibilities of his idiosyncratic instrumentation. On ‘Wetter’, bass and harmonica come together into a monstrous, growling jaw harp; on ‘Had we but world enough and more time’, the subtly shifting pulsating patterns start to feel almost like a kind of evaporated, drum-less dub techno until an eruption of wheezing bass harmonica gives the piece a comically folkish turn. Willberg’s melodically inventive and virtuosic bass performance calls to mind any number of fusion touchstones, from Jaco Pastorius to Mark Egan’s singing tone in the early Pat Metheny Group—even Anthony Jackson’s work with Steve Kahn. But with its radically reduced instrumentation, The Leisure Principle is also an exercise in minimalism, and the absence of percussion gives even its funkiest moments a strangely abstracted quality. At times, its uncanny blend of the abstruse and the immediate suggests the fried pop experiments of David Rosenboom or the skewed but deeply musical DIY of 80s underground groups like De Fabriek. Both easy on the ear and profoundly strange, The Leisure Principle proudly takes its place among the most eccentric offerings on the Black Truffle menu.

"You can hear it before it’s been said, and before you hear it, the space for its anticipation is someplace you’re already in. And if you were there, you would have seen it, taking place, taking shape, becoming, between them, an event, no less a body than a route, no more a method than a calling or a having been called, an affirmation of the phantasmatic nature of the divide separating the arrhythmia of improvised music from dance music’s foundational investment in the number four. An affirmation which is also an affective, questing, generative disinvestment in this opposition, a negation set in motion by a trialogical listening and playing into materiality new conjunctures of space, time, thought and sound." (Edward George, 2024) ----- YESYESPEAKERSYES is the first vinyl release of the remarkable collaboration between Chicago foot-work founder Kavain Wayne Space (aka RPBoo) and London duo experiment XT (drummer Paul Abbott and saxophonist Seymour Wright). The trio’s synthesis of rhythms, sounds, strategies, technologies and traditions collapse genre, distance, boundaries and preconceptions into a total, and totally unique, brain... morecreditsreleased March 15, 2024 Kavain Wayne Space/XT (Paul Abbott + Seymour Wright) – Trio ----- Kavain Wayne Space – CDJs Paul Abbott – real and imaginary drums Seymour Wright – actual and potential saxophone ----- Recorded live Friday October 8th, 2021, at Cafe OTO, LondonRecorded by Shaun CrookMixed by Billy SteigerMastered by Amir ShoatCover paintings by Benedict Drew Thank you – Fielding Hope, Jackson Burton.

Feedback Moves kicks off 2023 with a new record by @xcrswx and Lolina. @xcrswx are Crystabel Riley (drum-/human-skin) and Seymour Wright (saxophone), they released ‘Call Time/Hard Out’ on Feedback Moves in 2020. Lolina is an electronic and digital musician, who has previously released music as Inga Copeland and was a member of the band Hype Williams. Their collaborative relationship stems back to 2020. Lolina invited @xcrswx to contribute new work to a radio residency on NTS. They made 3 pieces played across 3 episodes. After these were broadcast, further ideas were exchanged which led to a collaborative audio-visual piece, streamed on Cafe Oto’s website in February 2021. They also performed as a trio live at Café OTO in 2022.The artists now present a split 10” vinyl. @xcrswx weave the above-mentioned pieces into a 10 minute piece titled ‘FIXES’. The duo strip their sound to bare components. Beginning with the sound of fireworks, the pair then work through stuttered snare shots and warbled, interplaying saxophone.Lolina presents ‘FM’; some of her strangest and most subtle work to date. Echoing and furthering the abstract turntablism found on previous records ‘Who Is Experimental Music?’ and ‘Fast Fashion’. We hear found sounds, close and distant, rhythmically gathered and dissolved in a swirl of dub tone and timbre.

"Perhaps a drum is a space wrapped in material. With some excitement the space and the material interact to produce vibrations, which we hear. Separately, yPLO prepared some sounds in advance of a performance based on the components of a speculative drum kitob TRU was performed and recorded live on 6/8/18 at Cafe OTO. During this live performance yPLO used amplified mylar, floor tom bass drum, mixers, audio recordings and microphones. The recordings were mixed and edited into 8 discrete tracks.yPLO (Paul Abbott & Michael Speers) is a project about imaginary drums and rhythms, using acoustic percussion and synthetic sounds.Michael Speers is a musician from Northern Ireland who works with various sound materials — using drums, computer, microphones, feedback — in performance, installation and composition. Other collaborators include John Wall, Louise Le Du, Olan Monk, Niklas Adam, Lee Fraser and Seijiro Murayama.Paul Abbott is a writer, sound and performance artist. He has played at venues and festivals internationally and was a resident at Cafe OTO. He completed a PhD at the University of Edinburgh under the supervision of Florian Hecker and Nikki Moran, and is currently undertaking research at Royal Conservatoire in Antwerp. He is also the co-founder and editor of Cesura//Acceso, a journal for music, politics and poetics."ob TRURecorded by Adam Asnan & James DunnMastered by Amir ShoatArtwork by Louise Le DuReleased: Feedback Moves 2024

The strange thing about the music of Anima is that it’s often considered as strange, while it’s actually very natural. It has a free spirit, analog to nature. For this release the natural spirit is strengthened by the participation of indigenous American flute player and composer R. Carlos Nakai who did a series of concerts in the US and Europe with Paul and Limpe Fuchs in the 1980’s. As with almost all Anima work, the natural feel manifests itself not only by the musical approach but also through sounds generated by natural materials as metal, wood, stone and air, and of course the absence of electronic devices. This LP is a reissue of a rare privately released cassette from 1988 and was recorded by the Bayerischer Rundfunk. May this slice of timeless free spirit be a trigger to more awareness concerning our decaying freedom.

‘A Late Lunch’ is the soundtrack to Akiko Iimura’s eponymous movie realized in 1978. It is based on acoustic instruments and field recordings, brilliantly reconfigured and mixed by Bekaert to create a surreal, immersive soundscape. The technique used includes superposition and speed change of recordings, radical sound effects and juxtapositions of sounds. The players were prominent musicians of the 1970’s, including Maggi Payne, George Lewis, David Rosenboom and Blue Gene Tyranny. ‘A Summer Day at Stony Point’ was composed in 1969, with participation of David Behrman, Shigeko Kubota and Charlotte Warren. The piece was commissioned by English composer Hugh Davies who presented it at the Harrogate festival the same year. Stony Point is a small village in New York State where John Cage co-owned a small pseudo-commune art resort where like-minded artists gathered. ‘A Summer Day at Stony Point’ is nothing more than a page of a journal, a fragment of a notebook that utilizes a series of sound sources recorded at Stony Point on one beautiful day in the summer of 1968. Other electronic sound sources were recorded at the Brandeis University where Alvin Lucier was professor. The final realization of the piece was done at Henri Pousseur’s APELAC Studio in Brussels, 1969. The soundtrack for Akiko Iimura’s ‘Mon Petit Album’ was composed on the basis of a simple description of the technique of the film and its time span. It includes David Behrman on alto, from an outdoor recording at Stony Point, plus excerpts from a Transition concert in London, the band Bekaert formed in 1971 with Michel Herr, Takehisa Kosugi and Ryo Koike, both members of the Taj Mahal Travelers. The atmosphere is quiet and pastoral throughout with a very dreamlike flavour. Jacques Bekaert (1940-2020) was a man of many gifts: author, journalist, composer, photographer, visual artist, wine connoisseur, radio talk show host, diplomat and expert in Southeast Asian affairs. His whole life Bekaert has been actively involved in music but not much of his work got recorded or published. In the early 60’s Bekaert studied with Pousseur and through his frequent visits to the US he became friends with artists like John Cage, David Tudor, Charlotte Moorman and most of all David Behrman with whom he had a close friendship ever since. Bekaert helped organize the first European tour of The Sonic Arts Union (David Behrman, Robert Ashley, Gordon Mumma, Alvin Lucier) and in the early 70’s he formed the group Transition (with Belgian jazz pianist Michel Herr, Takehisa Kosugi and Ryo Koike, both members of the Taj Mahal Travelers). His meeting with Japanese experimental film-maker Akiko Iimura resulted in two film soundtracks featured on this one of a kind discreet avant garde album. When asked in a 1979 interview about his double life as a musician and a journalist, Bekaert replied, “I suppose they’re both unsafe, unstable, questioning jobs—composing and reporting. Journalism takes me to places, shows me the world as it is. My music is my wish for the kind of world I’d want to live in. The little peaceful state I dream for everyone, where you can be yourself, and happy, and as collective as possible without giving up total privacy.” Originally released in 1981 on the Belgian Igloo label this reissue comes with the same sleeve as originally designed by Alain Géronnez.

There is no doubting the importance of Gil Scott-Heron’s “Pieces Of A Man” LP. It was a landmark album with its bold, poetic lyrical content allied to progressive and melodic music, and it saw producer Bob Thiele help Gil and his musical partner Brian Jackson paint the picture they needed to get their message across. Thiele put Gil and Brian together with Ron Carter, Hubert Laws and Bernard Purdie, giving them the musical heft they wanted.

The first-ever album from Gil Scott-Heron – and a perfect bridge between the world of his writing and the years to come of musical transformations that would forever change the American scene! The set's not the warm, jazzy soul of some of Gil's later records – and instead, there's a really raw vibe, mostly with Gil speaking instead of singing – often with just heavy percussion at the core, and these really righteous words served out over the top! All the work is his own, and the album's a showcase for his brilliant protest poetry – the most famous example of which is included in "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", which leads off the album with an especially righteous groove! The set's a key link in the African American musical tradition of the 20th century – and proof that the underground, while not always afforded a good place in the broadcast markets of the US, could always burst forth in the "narrowcast" medium of recorded music. A landmark album – one we like even better than the early work by the Last Poets – and great all the way through! Tracks include "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", "Whitey On The Moon", "Who'll Pay Reparations On My Soul?", "The Subject Was Faggots", and "Brother".

Legendary Los Angeles radical jazz artist, Horace Tapscott and The Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra. Horace Tapscott is the key figure in the Los Angeles political and underground jazz scene of the late 20th century – his stridently independent and radical music, as far-reaching, cosmic and spiritual in scope as it was rooted in the Watts community of Los Angeles where he lived. This superb rare, deep and spiritual jazz opus album was recorded at the Immanuel United Church of Christ, Los Angeles, in 1979, and has been unavailable on vinyl for over 40 years. ‘I had a vision of the inside of this church, and I went there, and it was just like I had dreamed it.’ This location remained the residence of the musical collective for most of the 1970s. The music of Horace Tapscott and The Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra is part Sun Ra Arkestra, part John Coltrane, part Art Ensemble of Chicago. This ground-breaking and monumental album (released here for the first time ever on expanded triple vinyl and double CD) explores the multi-faceted deep and spiritual jazz of Tapscott – Afro-centric rhythms, hypnotic bass lines, Tapscott’s stabbing modal piano playing and stunning flute and horn arrangements. ‘The Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra ‎– Live at I.U.C.C.’ is a true high point in the cannon of great independent underground jazz music recorded during this era. Tapscott’s Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra was set up as a musicians’ collective in Los Angeles in the early 1960s, part of the Underground Musicians Association (UGMA), later Union of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension (UGMAA), an umbrella organisation for musicians, poets, dancers and painters in the neighbourhood. Out of this group came many leading players including Black Arthur (Arthur Blythe), Azar Lawrence, Dwight Trible, Phil Ranelin (originally from Tribe), writer Stanley Crouch, David Murray, Adele Sebastian, Jesse Sharps and hundreds more. At the start of the 1960s Tapscott was part of a radical underground jazz scene on the west coast that included Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. But while these other artists sought international success and the magnetic pull of New York City, Tapscott chose to remain in Los Angeles music and stayed firmly rooted in the Watts community, organising the long-standing Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and the Union of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension. This musical and artistic collective was part of the larger Black Arts Movement that spread across the USA during this time - in similar fashion to African-American community arts collectives such as The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (and Art Ensemble of Chicago) in Chicago, the Tribe collective of musicians in Detroit, Amiri Baraka’s Spirit House in New Jersey, and The Black Artists Group in St Louis. After Tapscott’s debut album for Impulse Records in 1969, Tapscott and the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra recorded two albums with Elaine Brown, the only woman to lead the Black Panther party. ‘Seize the Time – The Black Panther Party’ also featured the artwork of Emory Douglas, graphic designer and Minister for Culture for the Black Panthers. Tapscott was closely aligned to the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panthers, at one point working out of the same two-story building in South LA – while upstairs they planned revolution, stockpiled weapons and hosted revolutionaries such as H Rap Brown, Angela Davis and Stokely Carmichael, downstairs Tapscott ran the Arkestra, a number of which were also Black Panther members. Through this association and after the UGMAA building was raided in the Watts Riots, Tapscott was watched by both the FBI and the CIA and effectively black-listed from further recording sessions. Despite this, throughout the 1970s Tapscott continued to create music as a community experience, performing and running workshops mainly at local parks and recreation events and in churches around the Watts area of Los Angeles. The group performed for free, sometimes requesting an entry fee of a food donation which was distributed to poor families in the area. Tapscott’s music remained undocumented throughout the 1970s. It was not until 1978 when a new record company, Nimbus West, was especially set up by Tom Albach, specifically to record the music of Tapscott, The Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra as well as a number of solo projects by group members. The music, ethos and influence of Horace Tapscott among Los Angeles artists is profound, McCoy Tyner commenting that in the 1970s there was no music coming out of LA that wasn’t linked to Horace Tapscott and The Pan-Afrikan Arkestra. In the 1990s a new generation of artists took inspiration from Tapscott; The West Coast Get Down collective, including Kamasi Washington and Thundercat, was involved in similar processes of cross-pollinisation across the arts in South Los Angeles working with Kendrick Lamar, Pan-Afrikan Arkestra vocalist Dwight Trible, Flying Lotus and his Brainfeeder label and others.

repress of the 1971 holy grail from South African revolutionary spiritual jazz legend Ndikho Xaba. Pressed at Pallas in Germany and presented in a single sleeve with four page insert containing notes from Francis Gooding, recollections from Plunky Branch and unseen archival photographs and concert bills.

For Rimarimba’s 1984 album On Dry Land, Robert Cox advances along the terrain explored on Below The Horizon. It’s an enchanting album, one which, at times, seems to comment on its own practice; a picture of everyday life in the hobbyist’s, or part-time musician’s, recording studio. Some moments point towards the tourist-explorer aesthetic that would eventually coalesce under the banner of Fourth World music. Other moments where Cox seems to be channelling an otherness, a kind of hauntological reverie, the feeling of music that gives us an uncanny sense of déjà vu. Writer David Keenan’s description of Japanese naïve-pop group Maher Shalal Hash Baz’s music, that it “feels like sketches of places where we once were, places now made poignant by our absence” feels like an alternate take On Dry Land.

Available as 320k MP3 or 24bit FLAC Tracklisting: 1. Teyas: Side A - 30:302. Teyas: Side B - 32:38TEYAS is an abstract opera that resulted from a meeting of three exceptional artists: audiovisual sister duo WIDT (Antonina Nowacka and Bogumila Piotrowska) from Warsaw and Berlin based legendary producer Christoph de Babalon. The collaboration started with the performance at the Easterndaze x Berlin 2016, curated by Lucia Udvardyova Recorded live at Cafe Oto, London September 27, 2018 Performed by Christoph de Babalon & WIDTRecorded by Shaun CrookMixed and mastered by Owen PrattImage by Mila Nowacka / WIDTDesign by Severin Black

all music by Brötzmann (Gema) and Nilssen-Love (Tono) published by Cien Fuegos Note: tracklist is different for LP and CD / digital format credits released January 26, 2024 Peter Brötzmann - tarogato, bb clarinet, contra-alto clarinet, bass saxophone, bass clarinet Paal Nilssen-Love - drums, gongs, percussion recorded by Michael Huon at Zuiderpershuis, Antwerp 25-26th of August 2015 mixed and mastered by Martin Siewert produced by Paal Nilssen-Love and Peter Brötzmann woodcut by Brötzmann, used for duo tour 2013 cover design by Lasse Marhaug

Recorded a month after Outspan No 1, this album offers up four more sonic delights from the core trio of Brötzmann, Van Hove, and Bennink. Rarely has free jazz/Euro improv/circus music/[your identifier here] sounded so unfettered and delightful -- adventurous without seeming self-serious, silly yet not without gravity. A must for any fan of these three maestros.

Eugen Robinson - voiceNiko Wenner - guitar, pianoDan Adams - bassGreg Davis - drumsandPeter Brötzmann - saxophone At the Moers Festival 2018, OXBOW got together with Peter Brötzmann to deliver a memorable performance, bringing out the best of two legends in their very own genres while playing old and new Oxbow songs together. Mix: Bill Mims and Joe Chiccarelli, "The Finished Line" mixed by Ken Sluiter and Joe Chiccarelli Mastering: John Golden Artwork: Aaron Turner Photos: Rainer Holz