Some albums are certainly a kind of holy grail for music lovers and collectors of a certain genre, style and era. FAR OUT with their eponymous debut and unfortunately also farewell album from 1973 have created such a sacred gem. Original copies in good condition change hands for up to 2000 USD and there are certainly a few not so official reprints on vinyl and CD out on the market which do not even come close to do justice to the greatness of the old original black gold. But here we go with the first ever official vinyl reissue taken directly from the original mastertapes supplied by Nippon Columbia. EVERLAND MUSIC did a brilliant job as usual with their reissue. The coverart with a white glove hanging on a washing line to dry comes on an awesome heavy gatefold sleeve. Including 2 inserts with live photos from back in the day when the band was going wild on stage. Now for the most important part, the music. There are certainly not too many wild moments here since both long tracks „Too many people“ and „Nihonjin“ have a melancholic, dreamy approach with a desperately howling and sighing lead guitar that spouts some utterly intense melodies. These two tracks are epics in the pure sense of the word. They start both with a rather gentle part which develops into a journey of sound that bring either vast landscapes of enchanting beauty untouched by modern human life or quite dramatic scenes to your mind’s eye. The lead guitarist often uses some strange instrument which is a kind of electric sitar to add the atmosphere of eastern mystic. So while falling into a state of deep trance while letting the music rush through my ears into my brain my spirit that has left my body embarks on a trip from the smokey volcanic hills around Pompeji to the icy permafrost wastelands of the Northeastern lands and arrives somewhere in the East Asian jungle on a gold plated pyramid of an unspeakable age where laughing demons dance around mystic fireplaces. Yes, this is the real journey to the center of your mind and despite having no really abstract freak out parts, tricky instrumental runs and twisted rhythm figures this music will capture your whole existence for the next 38 minutes. The end of „Nihonjin“, the second tune, shows an ambient like section with synthesizer background, echoing atonal sitar, a brightly squeaking flute, organ carpet and some percussions. This is indeed a rather extreme part, due to the pointed tone of the flute but quite soon the music stops and leaves the listener back in reality. This second track later on got a kind of reappearance on the FAR EAST FAMILY album „Nipponjin“, also retitled as „Nipponjin“. Mastermind behind both acts is multi instrumentalist Fumio Miyashita, so there is no wonder. The later version has more space rock elements and electronic sounds than the original FAR OUT tune and is a little bit shorter all in all. But I digress. This is the real thing for those who still miss the melodies and atmosphere of the late 60s and very early 70s when people had a dream of a peaceful world and who enjoy early German cosmic kraut rock like AMON DÜÜL II, ORGANISATION (later to become KRAFTWERK), the debut album by TANGERINE DREAM and more obscure stuff but also international bands like PINK FLOYD, GONG, TWINK and HAWKWIND just as an East Asian version. A real gem and finally available with the real sound and package again. ℗ 1973, 2019 Nippon Colombia Co., Ltd.

In the mid-'60s, Albert Ayler found himself at the center of major transformations within jazz. On his albums for ESP-Disk', his delivery was radically aggressive and his tone blistering – aiming for something beyond the New Thing. His music would be further energized when (at the behest of John Coltrane) Bob Thiele signed him to Impulse! As Ayler told The Plain Dealer at the time, "It's not about notes anymore. It's a sound – a feeling. The approach we're taking will discontinue the use of the word 'jazz.'" In Greenwich Village, Ayler's first LP on Impulse!, perfectly captures the Cleveland-born saxophonist's radiant intensity. Sourced from a pair of live engagements – February '67 at the Village Theatre on New York's Lower East Side and December '66 at the Village Vanguard – these recordings show an improved clarity in production and performance. Both sets feature two basses (including Alan Silva and Henry Grimes) which allowed the ensemble to go in different harmonic directions while maintaining an organic unity. Of particular interest are "For John Coltrane," a tribute to Ayler's mentor who would pass later that year, and "Truth Is Marching In" where trumpeter Donald Ayler joins his brother to celebrate and ultimately deconstruct several jazz traditions to stunning effect. Vibrant in sound and vision, Albert Ayler's In Greenwich Village is a landmark statement in free jazz and a career high-point for this truly original artist. Superior Viaduct is honored to present this classic album on vinyl for the first time domestically in 30 years.

Byard Lancaster was a composer/multi-instrumentalist born in Philadelphia in 1942. He started playing alto saxophone at an early age and later took up flute and bass clarinet. While attending Berklee College of Music, Lancaster and pianist Dave Burrell organized late-night jam sessions with fellow students and touring musicians. In 1965, he moved to New York and quickly became part of the city's burgeoning scene – playing with jazz luminaries such as Archie Shepp, Sunny Murray, Bill Dixon and Marzette Watts. It's Not Up To Us, Lancaster's 1968 debut as a leader, was originally released on Vortex, a subsidiary of Atlantic responsible for first albums by Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and Sonny Sharrock. Featuring guitarist Sharrock (another Berklee alum), It's Not Up To Us is true fire music – fusing elements of free jazz, soul/R&B; and traditional folk song. On the opening title track, Lancaster's luminous flute draws the listener in, while bassist Jerome Hunter grounds the tune with a simple descending theme over Keno Speller and Eric Gravatt's syncopated rhythms. "John's Children," a reference to the group's status as post-Coltrane players, showcases the modal strumming of Sharrock's steady drones as Lancaster cries into the void. After repeated listens, Lancaster's original compositions become visceral aural memories ingrained in the ear, while the standards ("Misty" and "Over The Rainbow") sound the most avant-garde pieces on the album. This first-time vinyl reissue is recommended for fans of Albert Ayler, Don Cherry and Pharoah Sanders.

In 1975 Wallace ‘Wally’ Smith Broecker published a paper that popularised the term ‘global warming’ and against a backdrop of change and environmental uncertainty, a musical concept album was commissioned. ‘Wilderness America / A Celebration of the Land’ - is a musical exploration of our place within the cycle of living things. All compositions were specially commissioned for the album and blended with natural sounds recorded in the wild – lending the entire project a conceptual air that still feels fresh today. The journey begins with the sun rising in the atmospheric haze of 'Dawn' - a track composed by new-age innovator Iasos. Gospel singer Walter Hawkins soon drops in with the soulful but ever so funky 'Metropolis' backed by a heavy array of session musicians with Patrick Gleeson, Ed Bogas and Tom Salisbury all adding their own misty magic to the album. David Riordan is the sorcerer conjuring up many of the compositions and also takes vocal duties on the evocative 'Mountain' and the climatic 'Before I'm Gone'. ‘Wilderness America / A Celebration of the Land’ was born when environmentalist Emily DeSpain Polk assembled a group of California residents to participate in a groundbreaking conservationist project. Christening the group SWAP (Small Wilderness Area Preservation) Emily needed funds and began a project to produce a promotional nature based music album. To acquire the financial backing Emily would need to source a musician of some calibre. Contacting Cliff Branch from ‘Warehouse Sound Co.’ she was told the man she was looking for was David Riordan. David Riordan had been around the music business for several years, first with The Yankee Dollar, then Sugarloaf and then Sweet Pain, he saw huge success with the single 'Green Eyed Lady'. David had worked on Cliff Branch’s 'Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends' albums and then released his solo album, 'Medicine Wheel'. But bored of touring he made the move to more concept-driven albums. First with ‘Christmas in San Francisco’ and then, in quick succession, 'Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land'. Riordan, along with Peter Scott, a music producer friend in San Francisco, began piecing together an idea for the album. They brought in Ed Bogas to do string arrangements and Tom Salisbury to conduct. David had also asked his friend Patrick Gleeson if he knew of any R&B;/Gospel singers in the Bay Area, and they soon added gospel singer Walter Hawkins into the mix. Other than the track ‘Metropolis’, which was recorded in LA, the rest of ‘Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land’ was recorded and mixed by Richard Beggs at the San Francisco studio of Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola was filming ‘Apocalypse Now’ at the same time – so in between studio sessions, the musicians were able to view the seemingly never-ending film rushes arriving from the Philippines. Eventually, the record produced by David Riordan and Peter Scott drifted onto the radar of vinyl obsessives and selectors as several of its key tracks began popping up on mixtapes and sales lists. It wasn’t long before this privately pressed, art-funded masterpiece became something of a holy grail for collectors. At long last, a re-issue of this masterpiece is now available on EBALUNGA!!! Records.

A real avant-garde curio and fascinating historical document capturing experimental pioneers Charlie Morrow, Sten Hanson, and Carles Santos having a soundclash in 1981, NYC, held inside a boxing gym and replete with hoots of laughter and applause from the crowd plus reflections by Charlie Morrow that's almost a new piece in its own right. A precedent of sorts to, erm, Armand van Helden vs Fatboy Slim’s 1999 bout, ‘The Heavyweight Sound Fight’ takes pride of place among iDEAL’s hall of oddities with one of the zaniest recordings by three international leaders of the avant-garde. Adapting all the pomp and ceremony of a boxing match to ludicrous ends - including a flier depicting each artist with their dukes up - they produced what sounds like a great night out for NYC’s experimental cognoscenti with Charlie Morrow (USA) vs Carles santos (Spain) each backed by a band - Soho Baroque Opera Company with the assistance of the New Wilderness Foundation - while Sweden’s Sten Hanson acts as referee, and Armand Schwerner takes the role of announcer in thick, nasal New York brogue. It’s brilliantly daft and subversive but accomplished in a witty way that maybe escapes too many solemnly po-faced avant-garde conceptualists nowadays, and  remains a strange outlier in the history of NYC avant garde and beyond. “Operating as an aural window into an happening that occurred more than 40 years ago, “The Heavyweight Sound Fight” unveils a different context of experimental music than is not often encountered today. Running across the album’s four sides, within all the seriousness of art and technique, is the unmistakable presence of humor, play, and the absurd. The audience can’t help but laugh and cheer as the announcer - effecting a deep New York accent and nodding toward notable attendees like Allison Knowles, Dick Higgins, and Jackson Mac Low - takes an active role in the fight, each artist delivering an array of vocalizations - from extended technique utterances to rants - against the next, with the bands weighing in and engaging in their own battles, ranging from big band dirges and marches, to outright experimental electronic madness. It's a trully raucous affair that brings that radicalism carried by its sounds into entirely new zones. According to Marrow, he was deemed “winner” in an “off-script” move by the judges, and Santos never spoke to him again, continuing the wild and wonderful mystery and humor of the performance into the present day. Who knows what Santos, who sadly passed away in 2017, would say."

Available as 320k MP3 or 16bit FLAC   “Fusées” isn’t the first collaboration between Thomas Bonvalet and Jean-Luc Guionnet, their first joint effort “Loges de Souffle” appearing on Be Coq last year. The same label also put out a vinyl edition of “Fusées”, but now Sarah Hennies’ label Weighter Recordings has thankfully stepped in with a CD and download release for the rest of us. Although the two artists are primarily known for their attachments to a particular instrument (guitar for Bonvalet, saxaphone for Guionnet), these instruments are only recognisably audible towards the end of the album, with the majority of sounds belonging to the percussive and analogue-electronic domains. In fact, so rhythmically driven is the album that I would’ve guessed that one of them was a percussionist. The album has a roughness and warmth to its timbres that is very appealing. Ideas unfold at a steady pace, not remaining static but not rushing anywhere either — a pleasure in sounds, but also in their organisation. The album title translates into English as ‘rockets’, and while there’s plenty of chemical energy and fire, there are also clear trajectories and flight plans. Whether these trajectories were planned out in advance or made up on the fly is, from the listener’s point of view, perhaps not so important. Developing structure can be clearly heard on tracks such as ‘2 mer D_v3’, where the interplay between synth stabs and pounding percussion twists and turns in an intricate dance. Even at its most off-kilter, such as in the broken ringtone melody of ‘1 mer B_v6_oct’, the music retains a sense of intention and direction; the transition through several shades of chaos is as detailed and as captivating as the harmonic micro-shifts of Hennies’ percussive rolls, just with much brasher colours. The guitar playing on ‘3 mar N_v3’ produces both percussive rhythm and modulating sinewave-like pitches, a synecdoche for the shapes of the album as a whole. Later in the piece, long single-note sax crescendos mould timbre and volume like clay on a potter’s wheel, inflected by stop-start percussion — a stunning effect. Only very rarely, such as on the last track, does the music slide into stock free improvisationish territory, competently done but already explored. “Fusées” is a propulsive album bursting with ideas, distilled into lucid and finely-balanced forms that dazzle and enthral." - Fluid Radio --- Thomas Bonvalet / audio ducker, microphones, amplificateurs, frappements de pieds et de mains, peau de tambour, banjo six cordes, componium, diapasons, plectre de pavot sec … Jean Luc Guionnet / deux vieux orgues électriques (Bontempi Tempest & Farfisa Matador), trois petits harmoniums, une table de mixage bouclée et quelques micros contacts et magnétiques, un petit trumpet speaker mobile, trompette de poche, saxophone soprano --- Recorded at Instants Chavirés, January 2014 by Adrian Riffo. Thanks to Instants Chavirés, Adrian Riffo, La Fonderie and François Tanguy.

"Ruedi Häusermann’s Galerie Randolph, a masterpiece of solo multi-tracking originally released on CD by Unit Records in 1995. Born in 1948 and residing in the medieval Swiss town of Lenzburg, and virtually unknown outside of the German-speaking world, Häusermann is a multi-instrumentalist and enormously prolific composer who works primarily in the medium of absurdist music-theatre. A virtuoso wind player and free improviser who also composes for traditional classical instrumentation, his work is characterised by subtly surreal humour and the unlikely combination of extended technique and simple, at times almost child-like, melodic ideas. Named after his rehearsal room in Lenzburg, Galerie Randolph uses an enormous array of instruments to craft a work of singular compositional vision. Each of the twelve pieces begins from the same two elements: a woozy, sliding scatter of tones played on a home-made contraption stretching two guitar strings between the top of Häusermann’s alto saxophone and an amplified cup, and a series of uneasy block chords sounded on accordion and reeds. On each piece these two elements (whose pitch gradually raises throughout the record) are complemented by entirely different material, all of it played by Häusermann. Ranging from layered flutes to one-finger piano melodies to unintelligible vocals to musique concrete interjections to free jazz saxophone explosions, these additional layers combine with the endlessly returning idée fixe of the foundational elements to create a truly dream-like listening experience, a gently deranged realm in which we lose all sense of linear time. Calling up the most unlikely combinations of possible predecessors – Erik Satie, Gerry Mulligan, and Helmut Lachenmann perhaps? –Galerie Randolph ultimately defies comparison. Almost unknown except to a select group of cognoscenti such as Jim O’Rourke, yet destined to become a cult classic, Galerie Randolph is an instance of that most rare thing: music the likes of which you have never heard before. Design by Stephen O’Malley. Mastered by Rashad Becker at D&M;, Berlin.

"Black Truffle proudly presents The Refrain from Melbourne-based artist Francis Plagne, whose growing catalog of collaborative and solo releases range from song-based work to abstract audio collages.Closely aligned with Plagne's Moss Trumpet LP (released by Penultimate Press in 2018), The Refrain’s two side-long tracks mix sounds of the mundane with the otherworldly; rising, receding and overlapping. The result feels like being led through a series of scenes devoid of context or direction. Furthermore, it’s hard to define the scenes as either inviting or disconcerting, as they’re often both at the same time. As the record progresses sounds reappear and are juxtaposed so as to only hint at the familiar. A hall of mirrors, perhaps?Completed in 2020 using material recorded from 2012-2020, the record uses tapes of shelved, unfinished, and forgotten projects that featured field recordings from various locations, domestic sounds of plastic bottles, bubble wrap, creaking chairs, voice, and instrumental recordings, including an appearance from crys cole on Casio. These pieces were re-amped, processed and edited, then additional instrumental pieces featuring synths, guitars, plastic saxophone, melodica, and percussion were added, the results shaped into drifting, episodic assemblages.Although essentially a tape piece, The Refrain presents as a crude, non-idiomatic composition that feels both timeless and transitory. It’s a million miles from the polish and rigour of GRM, perhaps more in line with Jacques Bekaert’s eponymous Igloo LP, or Costin Miereanu’s Luna Cinese. The Refrain could be read as a psychedelic Krapp’s Last Tape; one man’s response to listening through forgotten and discarded tapes, reflecting, reconciling, and forging a new path. A potent tonic for these absurd times."-- Nick Hamilton, August 2021

Black Truffle is pleased to present Realejo, the first vinyl release from Brazilian sound artist and composer Manuel Pessoa de Lima. Having composed works for diverse contexts including cinema, contemporary dance, theatre and television, Lima’s live appearances often take the form of self-reflexive lecture performances that combine electro-acoustic sound, red light, video and spoken text, moving unpredictably from the hilarious to the distressing.Realejo consists of two side-long pieces of highly idiosyncratic electro-acoustic collage, beginning with recordings Lima made of himself playing the organ in the Schloss Solitude Chapel in Stuttgart. Exploring the peculiarities of the instrument’s mechanics, Lima made hours of recordings with the organ stops half-way open, moving from haunting gliding tones to oddly tuned fair-ground melodies reminiscent of the record’s namesake realejo, a hand-cranked organ traditionally found in Brazil as the musical accompaniment to the work of fortune-telling parrots.To these organ sounds, Lima added recordings of a security guard made in São Paulo: ‘Just before coming to Stuttgart, I started making field recordings of a security guard in São Paulo. It's something pretty common in residential areas: they sit in a chair with a whistle, and use that to signal when people arrive, leave or pass by in the street. This particular security guard, Miguel Viana, works on the same street my parents live, and where I had my childhood, and he has worked there since I was a small child. He has watched the street at night, from 8PM to 6AM, every single day, except Sundays, for over 30 years’.The poignant sounds of the security guard’s whistles punctuate Lima’s electro-acoustic environment, which also includes raw digital synthesis, recordings of his friends’ infant child, audio lifted from Youtube, and, on the LP’s second side, elements taken from an earlier work, ‘36 English to Portuguese Lessons’. Finely chiselled from dozens of hours of source material into a detail-rich, mercurial structure, Realejo is alternately jarring and seductive, introducing listeners to a young composer with a powerfully individual voice.

At the top of a carpeted staircase in a Georgian country home a blue wooden rocking horse stands completely still in front of a closed window with a view out onto the green hills and trees and fields beyond. A child rides a stationary wooden horse and travels to faraway places without ever leaving the security of his room. The movement of a rocking horse is similar to that of a cradle, or a swing, or a lullaby. Its about being quiet, its about balance, its about being at home and thinking of elsewhere The Horse Stories is the soundtrack to Going places sitting down, a film by Hiraki Sawa, commissioned by the Hayward Gallery and Bloomberg London, for Waterloo Sunset, the Dan Graham Pavilion at the Hayward in November 2004. It is a piece about make-believe journeys to far-away places (at the tips of your fingers, between the cracks in the floor at your feet, on the edge and behind the door, right here where you are, close-by...) For the soundtrack I used sounds belonging to the country house and garden in which Sawa filmed - water running in the upstairs bathroom; rain water dripping on the stones outside the kitchen door, sparkling water in a glass on the table, the wind-chime and the clock and the record player... And then the sounds of music boxes being played - one elaborate antique music-box with bells the shape of bees and a miniature hollow drum, and other simple music boxes, playing only one tune each, tiny naked metallic combs and drums and handles. At the core of all my sound work lies a deep interest in ideas of aliveness, of space and the awareness of time passing, of breathing and being still and of listening. And of the possibility of grace.

Bo’ Weavil is totally psyched to have the opportunity to release the second album by Reines d'Angleterre. This time a thoroughly studio affair. Reines d’Angleterre is a fascinating collaboration between avant outsider musician Ghédalia Tazartès and two electronic botanists, èlg and Jo aka Opéra Mort. This LP covers more of the wild ground the band started with on “Les Comores” released back in 2010, but going further into a musical terrain that defies definite description…a slow trip into wizards intimacy, synthetic jungles, underseas zoos and tibetan-industrial complexes. It feels like one has stumbled into disturbing dreams from a different realm. A quality of mystery, trickery and halucinatory movements slip and shift across the recording. This is out there music, experimental music with no fixed abode with a unique quality that defies most things today.

Recorded in New Zealand in 2004, is the duo recording of New Zealand guitarist Donald McPherson and Japanese guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama. A beautiful meeting of 2 virtuoso acoustic guitarists, both thoroughly schooled in the vast world of improvising. This record finds Tetuzi and Donald playing melodic folk improvisations that grow and morph into compositions that on each listening uncover some new layer of beauty. Both playing on acoustic guitar, they have a level of communication and understanding of each others playing, that allows a musical connection to grow and blossom into a full-length recording of delicate melodic mayhem. ‘The LP is limited hand numbered edition of 500

For over 50 years, Kan Mikami has stood as a master of the Japanese blues and outsider folk. His unmistakable, powerfully evocative voice and surrealistic poetry reveal a gritty, transgressive life on the margins shot through with evocations of sex and violence, religion and romance. Released in 1991, I’m the Only One Around was Mikami's first album with Tokyo's legendary P.S.F. Records and heralded an artistic renaissance. It marked the beginning of an incredibly productive and wildly creative era for Mikami that extends to the present day. This opening salvo presents the essential core of Mikami’s music; With nothing but his voice and a stripped down electric guitar the album is a powerful, effortlessly emotional statement filled with moments of both brutal passion and gentle revelation. It is unrestrained, direct, brutally honest. It embodies Mikami’s philosophy: “If you’re going to make music, stake your life on it - it’s worth it. Making music is an intensely human act.” In the newly translated notes to the album, Hiroyuki Itsuki, one of Japan’s most renowned writers perhaps put it best: “What erupts here is all the fury and grief of Jōmon Man (the prehistoric people of the Japanese archipelago), lobbed into the middle of a 1990s city. Kan Mikami is unchanging, yet definitely in motion. He advances not forwards, but backwards. Not a retreat, rather he consciously progresses backwards. At the final destination for his full-steam astern poésie lies a massive, gaping black hole, exuding a dazzling, black light. This is the image evoked by the world of Kan Mikami that you can hear on this album.” Mikami would go on to release 15 solo albums with P.S.F. as well as numerous collaborative efforts with other giants of the Japanese underground including Motoharu Yoshizawa, Masayoshi Urabe and Keiji Haino, with whom, along with Toshiaki Ishizuka he formed the group Vajra. Black Editions is honored to present the first ever vinyl edition of Kan Mikami’s “I’m the Only One Around” featuring lyrics translated by Drew Stroud and newly translated notes by Alan Cummings. Remastered and cut to vinyl at Elysian Masters Los Angeles, pressed by RTI, packaged in heavy Stoughton tip-on jackets with insert featuring textured paper, gold foil stamping and metallic inks.

'The latest entry in An’archives’ ‘Free Wind Mood’ series, Ki is a trio that pits long-time collaborators Tamio Shiraishi (saxophone, voice) and Takahashi Michiko aka Mico (drums, voice, vocoder, melodica, piano, percussion) against drummer, percussionist and vocalist Fritz Welch. They each bring a wealth of experience, from Shiraishi’s early moves in the Japanese underground of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s – he was a founding member of Fushitsusha, and played with Taco and Machinegun Tango – to his legendary, late-night solo New York subway performances; he and Mico also spent some time playing with No Neck Blues Band, while Welch, currently based in Glasgow, has a long history taking in stints with Peeesseye, Lambs Gamble and FvRTvR. Tearful Face Of My Cute Love (Is Begging To Me), named after a yakuza song, is Ki’s first LP, after CD-Rs on Chocolate Monk (Ki No Sei, 2009) and Unverified (Stops Dropping, 2010). Documenting two live performances from 2008, it’s a startling, wild freedom chase, each piece stretching languorously across one side of the vinyl, giving the trio maximum space to thunder their way through space and time. Their West Nile 2008 show, on side one, opens with a battery of drums, fierce and livid, before Shiraishi’s unmistakable and remarkable whinnying, high-zone tone slithers into earshot. The stage is set, the battle moves forward, yet there’s remarkable simpatico between the three players, with Mico and Welch volleying guttural vocal exhortations at each other. When it does offer respite – see the sudden swoop into near- silence at around 12:30– everything’s still tense; who knows what’s around the corner? For all its fury, though, Tearful Face Of My Cute Love… is full of oddly lyrical moments, too – see the sweet melody that winds out, with gentle melancholy, near the very end of the West Nile performance. This lyricism also haunts the second side of the album, a performance from Glassland, Brooklyn, which seems more focused on the intersection of incidents, from clattering cymbals to ghostly swarms of sax scream, to dive-bombing spirals of vocoder. There’s an appealing sense of audio verité here, as though you’re in theroom with the performers, shaken and stirred by every movement, lost in the interlocking maze they’re weaving in real time. It’s a bracing, thrilling document of very immediate, human music – of three bodies moving through the world, sounding their environment.' - John Dale

It’s been almost three decades since Japanese guitarist and songwriter Masami Kawaguchi first broke cover, with his group Broomdusters and their debut album, 23 hours 30 minutes (Purifiva, 1997). In the intervening years, Kawaguchi has maintained single-minded discipline, through his membership of some of the Japanese underground’s greatest groups (Miminokoto, LSD March, Los Doroncos, Usurabi, and his projects with Keiji Haino: Aihiyo and The Hardy Rocks); the exhilarating music made by his own band, New Rock Syndicate; and a small clutch of intimate (mostly live) solo recordings. But nothing in his history has been quite as distinctive, nor as singular, as Self Portrait. The title’s a strong clue, of course, but the real tell is in the consummate nature of the eight songs here – this is Kawaguchi articulating most clearly his vision of what rock music could and should be, and what it means to him. His first studio solo album, it’s both dedication and hymn to the music that keeps Kawaguchi moving. Deftly crafted and sweetly intimate, Self Portrait is bursting with great songs, shufting from gorgeous acoustic folk-blues melancholy – see “Visions Of Marianne”, and the dreamlike closer, “On The Rooftop”, which Kawaguchi describes as his answer song to the Rolling Stones’ “As Tears Go By” – to storming rock monsters. To that end, it’s a goddamn thrill to hear Kawaguchi and friends jamming on a James Brown riff through “Awake”, squeezing all the nuance out of its stop-start, staccato rhythms. Elsewhere, Kawaguchi lazily strums a psychedelic air, on the Syd Barrett-esque “Blindfold Blues”, and rifles through his backpack to find one of his earliest songs, the strung-out, levitating “Nothing”, which he wrote when he was nineteen years old. “Song For Golden Hair” pays tribute to the psychedelic sixties; “Drinking With Mr. K” remembers Japanese psych-rock legend Jutok Kaneko of Kousokuya. Kawaguchi’s been playing the long game, slowly whittling away at a unique and personal take on rock and the blues, one that’s equal parts reverent and forward-thinking, playful and deeply committed. Self Portrait is the clearest articulation yet of his dedicated vision. And it’s a total blast.  --- An'Archives, 2021

Albedo Gravitas is an extension of Albedo Fantastica (released on An’archives in 2018), the duo of Keiko Higuchi and Sachiko (Kousokuya, Overhang Party, Vava Kitora) Both of them are well known names to those who are evolving in the Japanese underground waters since each has been involved in many projects and each has a consisting discography on labels as Musik Atlach, Improvising Beings, Utech. Their respective backgrounds are maybe a little bit different but they share a common interest in different genres from jazz and rock to free improvisation and have collaborated with a cast of various musicians in the likes of Cris X, Fukuoka Rinji, Kawaguchi Masami, Shin-Ichiro Kanda… For Albedo Gravitas, Shizuo Uchida joins on bass. A peripatetic member of the Japanese underground, having played with groups such as Nord, Onna-Kodomo, Hasegawa-Shizuo, Kito Mizukumi Rouber and Keiji Haino’s Nijiumu, he most recently turned up on An’archives as one half of UH, alongside sax player Takayuki Hashimoto (of KMR and .es). While this is Albedo Gravitas’s first album, they play together with intelligence and sensitivity, but also with a strong capacity for the unexpected; there are many moments here where you’re wrong-footed, caught askance by the way the music comes together, and comes apart. Higuchi’s and Sachiko’s instrumental armory is multiple : piano, drums, melodica, electronics. Maybe their most remarkable presence, though, comes through voice – the glottal contortions, heart-rending sighs and moans, and chopped’n’screwed real-time vox improvs that soar across the album’s unpredictable musical terrain. Uchida works here with temporal disruption, there with heavyweight bass punctuation; drums plot out the most welcome rudimentary anti-rhythms, as electronics and melodica shoot arcs of white light through the air, lending an avant-chamber charm to the music here. Most startling are the dynamics of the two side-long pieces, and the way the group use silence and stilted landscapes to suggest all kinds of routes previously unnavigated. In its capacity for disorientation, it feels indeed like a surprising kind of psychedelia, one far from generic constraint, and much closer to the sidereal suspension that that most overused of terms should rend through your head.  --- ALBEDO GRAVITAS [ Keiko Higuchi + Sachiko + Shizuo Uchida ] --- An' Archives, 2021

First LP from Japanese free improvising duo MAI MAO. Consisting of Shizuo Uchida of Hasegawa-Shizuo, Albedo Gravitas, archeus, Kito Muzukumi Rouber, TERROR SHIT, UH, etc. on bass, and Kyosuke Terada, of HUH (who have their own release due on An’archives soon), TERROR SHIT, Bay City Rolaz, Praymate, The Obey Unit, etc. on guitar, they’ve previously released two wild cassettes, Curvature Improvement Plan (Haang niap, 2020) and Folk Dope Rally (2021), both documenting one-take improvisations from live gigs. Ricshari was recorded by Nobuki Nishiyama in January 2021, and is proof, if any was needed, that this duo is one of the most fiercely unique, out-there units currently extant – in Japan, or anywhere, for that matter. The music of MAI MAO seems to proceed by opposites and juxtaposition, shifting from frantic, hectic runs of splattering note spray to moments of granular stasis, where Uchida and Terada coax their instruments into and out of deep wells of silence, or rest, temporarily, in a lagoon of fermenting fuzz. Spiralling kinetics are largely the order of the day, though – the opener, “Chew a flying flash prayer”, skitters here and there, guitar and bass jumping over one another in games of leapfrog and Twister, finding new ways to perplex and puzzle the listener, and perhaps each other in the process, Uchida and Terada fully committed to the short-circuiting spirit of the moment. The energy here is hyperactive, but it also speaks of a curious and committed attention to improvisatory responsiveness, one that’s just as likely to fork off into different directions in a split second – it’s real edge-of-the-seat stuff, as though the hands are moving too fast for the mind to follow. That’s all the better, then, to let the gush of genuinely free-thinking, devoted duo improvisation to fly at its most playful and intelligent. File next to the likes of Davey Williams & LaDonna Smith and their TransMuseq companions, or the wickedly perplexing bass-synth/trombone duets of Dave Dove Paul Duo, and you’ve some idea of what’s going on here, provisionally at least, ‘cos this one’s an enthralling, yet welcoming, head-scratcher of the highest calibre.

Newcastle (UK) based 3 piece Beauty Pageant are Helen Papaioannou, Daniel Dixon and Marie Thompson. They make a big loud raucous circus like clatter comprising of pounding drums, detuned guitar, gnarly baritone sax and sticky banshee vocals. Sometimes playful, sometimes minimal, always noisy! Beauty Pageant’s searing new EP drives home the bands’ desire to offer you something out of the ordinary. Trouncing waves of distortion are delivered over a bed of vigorous clunk and interwoven with sporadic invasions of erratic baritone sax. Revered in their hometown for their unbridled live shows, Beauty Pageant’s unique and chaotic sound has been expertly captured on ‘Torso‘