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".

Re-issue of the classic 1974 compilation originally released to capitalise on his success with the track 'the Bottle'. The CD version contains nine extra tracks, the original spoken word version of the title track and edited versions of some of his poems. The vinyl version is an exact replica of the original release packaged in a heavy duty sleeve.

Outernational Sounds present a reissue of Nate Morgan's Retribution, Reparation, originally released on Nimbus West Records in 1984. A core member of the circle around Horace Tapscott, pianist Nate Morgan was a key member of the Pan Afrikan People's Arkestra, known as The Ark. Here is the second of his two LPs for Nimbus West. His first, Journey Into Nigritia had been a declaration of arrival laced with energies drawn from Cecil Taylor and Coltrane. One year later, in 1984, with nods to Herbie Hancock ("One Finger Snap") and Ellington ("Come Sunday"), Retribution, Reparation was a confident statement of purpose. Politically charged with pan-Africanist Black nationalism, and titled with uncompromising directness, the album focusses the sound world of the Ark into a surging, restless masterpiece of spiritualized modal jazz. Danny Cortez on trumpet and Jesse Sharps on saxophones comprise an explosive frontline. Fritz Wise and Ark regular Joel Ector hold down the rhythm section. Morgan's forceful, Tyner-like chords and virtuosic solos bind the music together. From the poised drama of the opening dedication to Tapscott's U.G.M.A.A. organization, through the propulsive militancy of the title track, "Retribution, Reparation" spreads the word: "Advance to Victory, Let Nigritia Be Free!" Fully licensed from Nimbus West founder Tom Albach.

Originally from Philadelphia, invited to New York by Miles Davis, playing at Antibes in 1960 with Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy, here is trumpeter Ted Curson in 1971… in Paris. With him, a legendary trio: Georges Arvanitas (piano), Jacky Samson (double bass) and Charles Saudrais (drums). A new transatlantic alliance in the service of jazz of all kinds: classic, modal, fusion and even free… Pop Wine is – between Coltrane and Miles with a nod to roots in the club the Caveau de la Huchette – an explosive cocktail but which leaves no stains! In 1960, trumpeter Ted Curson played with Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy on stage at the Antibes jazz festival. Eleven years later he was in Paris to record one of the gems of his discography, with a hard-hitting French trio: Georges Arvanitas (piano), Jacky Samson (double bass) and Charles Saudrais (drums). Arvanitas was also someone who had travelled widely. Originally from Marseille, he had accompanied visiting American musicians in Paris before moving to the States. It was when he came back that the charismatic trio was created with Samson and Saudrais and who recorded, in 1970 on Futura, the unforgettable In Concert and then, the following year, Pop Wine with Ted Curson. Pop Wine: don’t be fooled into thinking you are going to hear jazz musicians trying to play pop after uncorking too many bottles. For, although the album occasionally tends toward fusion, it is first and foremost a wonderful jazz recording; and a recording with enough fizz to make your head spin! There are five tracks in total: Quartier Latin reminds us a little of Olé Coltrane (Curson, like the saxophonist, is originally from Philadelphia), Flip Top where the trumpet and piano play out a chase scene through the streets of Paris, Pop Wine where funk and cool jazz meet on the barricades of black and white, L.S.D. Takes A Holiday which breaks out in a style close to free jazz, and finally Lonely One, with the impression that ends this unclassifiable album. Unclassifiable, unless we decide to elevate Pop Wine to the rank of a great vintage. 

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.

Reissue of Horace Tapscott's amazing album 'The Call' from 1978 which was recorded by the 16-piece ensemble the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra. A four track delight of spiritual jazz from the pioneering conductor, arranger, pianist and composer at the heart of the Los Angeles jazz scene.

Long awaited repress of Hivemind's acclaimed debut LP, Maalem Mahmoud Gania's Colours of the Night. Easily among the best Gnawa records ever laid to tape, from one of Morocco’s great masters of the form, known among jazz fans for his wonderful collaborations with Pharoah Sanders, Peter Brötzmann, Hamid Drake. Hive Mind Records are proud to present Colours of the Night, the final studio recordings of deep, hypnotic Gnawa songs from the late, great Maalem Mahmoud Gania. The recordings see their first release outside of Morocco on 8 September 2017, and are available as a double vinyl LP and digital download. The release has been licensed directly from the Gania family and comes with the support of all who were involved in the original recordings. Colours of the Night is his first album to receive a vinyl release. Maalem Mahmoud Gania was one of Morocco's most famous Gnawa musicians. Gnawa is a musical and spiritual tradition originating in sub-Saharan Africa that has survived as a subculture within Moroccan society for centuries. The roots of the blues can be heard in its hypnotic rhythms.

This is the debut solo release of Benju maestro, Ustad Noor Bakhsh, from the Makran Coast of Balochistan. The album is named 'Jingul', after a bird that often frequents Noor's house, and whose songs inspired the last track on this release — an original by Noor. The album was recorded live on location, over a memorable sunset on the Shadi Kaur creek, close to Noor's village, near Pasni, Balochistan. Noor plays an Electric Benju, amplified using an old pick up and Phillips amp that he found in a market in Karachi three decades ago. The Benju, is said to have once been a Japanese children's toy called the Taishōgoto. At some point in the 20th century, it was modified and naturalised by Baloch musicians who made it in to a refined folk instrument for themselves. Balochistan straddles the space between modern day Pakistan and Iran but its music, particularly that of Makran, evokes the well documented migrations and seafaring; historical intimacies with Africa, Persia, and Arabia, via the greater Indian Ocean world. It is this world that Noor's music wanders through.

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.

A dense collection of intricate close-miked small object improvisation, homemade instruments and slippery tape music wirr and skrong. All held together with a skilled sense of pace and humor.While many of duo’s recordings revolve around collages of voice, Room Service sets aside the deadpan humor of some of their earlier works and gets down to an intense tape collaged funhouse of squeaking spring, resonating wine glass, clattering bric-a-brac and bowed whatsit.Adam Bohman and Jonathan Bohman have been recording together since their early teens and playing live since 1984.   Their repertoire includes a combination of sounds created in the moment and distinct compositions including songs. They use unconventional instruments, household objects, dislocated text from found, literary and commercial sources and collaged layers of recordings. 

OTOROKU is proud to present the first vinyl reissue of Blue Notes for Mongezi, one of the most passionate celebrations of a life in music ever laid to tape. Recorded in late 1975 by Blue Notes, then reduced to a quartet - Dudu Pukwana on  alto sax, whistle, percussion, and vocals; Johnny Dyani on bass, bells, and vocals; Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums, percussion, and vocals; and Chris McGregor on piano, and percussion - and issued the following year by Ogun, the album is a kairos; the first commercial release by one of free jazz’s seminal ensembles, captured them 13 years after their founding - at the height of their powers - delivering an explosive dirge dedicated to Mongezi Feza, their former bandmate and friend.  Blue Notes were founded in Cape Town in 1962 and stand among the most important ensembles in the history of jazz. Artistically brilliant and groundbreaking - gathering, within a few short years, a devoted following that included Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Abdullah Ibrahim, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Drew,Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, John Stevens, and numerous others - they were also the first widely visible multiracial band in South Africa. As a mixed race band under South African apartheid; this group of friends and like-minded artists - Chris McGregor, Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana, Nikele Moyake, Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo-Moholo -  existed within a context that viewed their mere existence as a dangerous and subversive act. In 1964, as the pressure mounted, they joined an exodus of musicians leaving for Europe, eventually settling in London during the following year. Sadly, not long after arriving and facing continued economic peril, the group buckled. Johnny Dyani left to join Don Cherry’s band. Moholo-Moholo and Dyani followed suit and joined Steve Lacy on tour, and the remaining members morphed into a number of ensembles that eventually grew to become Chris McGregor's Brotherhood Of Breath. In late 1975 however, Mongezi Feza - in the midst of a fruitful period collaborating with Dudu Pukwana, Johnny Dyani, and Okay Temiz - suddenly passed away at the age of thirty from pneumonia. Nine days later, on the 23rd December, following the memorial service to their friend, Pukwana, Dyani, McGregor, and Moholo-Moholo gathered in a rehearsal room in London and set out to play. Fittingly, no discussion took place before or during the session. The music was left to say it all.   The resulting double LP coalesced into four long-form movements that occupy a side each, collectively unleashing an onslaught of free jazz fire, fluidly covering a remarkable range of moods and tactical approaches across it’s length. For anyone encountering the Blue Notes for the first time, the album must have felt like being blindsided by a brick, adding a profound sense of credence to Moholo-Moholo’s belief that free improvisation was intrinsically linked to the Pan-African temperament. In the band’s hands, the idiom sounds like nothing else and exactly as it should.  A frenzied funeral dirge, a cry, and catharsis, the record rises and falls between playful and joyous movements of deconstructed song, rhythmic and vocal tribalism, and churning, instrumental free expression. It indicates not only a possible future for musical expression - as all truly avant-garde music does - but also the very roots of music itself, illuminating, through abstraction, the far-flung, ancient roots currently carried by the New Orleans “first line” march to the grave. It is a decidedly African vision of free jazz, coalescing as a collective expression of celebration and loss on a cold London day. It is a masterpiece unfolding in real time - out on a limb and laden with risk - created by four of the most talented voices the idiom has known.   --- DUDU PUKWANA / alto sax, whistle, percussion, vocals CHRIS McGREGOR / piano, percussion LOUIS MOHOLO / drums, percussion, vocals JOHNNY DYANI / bass, bell, vocals and most of the words --- This 2022 re-issue has been made with permission and in association with Ogun records. Transferred from the original masters and featuring an exact reproduction of the original artwork. Remastered by Giuseppe Ilelasi and packaged in a high gloss sleeve. All music by the Blue Notes. All music published by Ogun Publishing Co. Cover design by Ogun.  Front cover photograph and photograph of Mongezi Feza by Geroge Hallet. Blue Notes photograph by Jurg. Back cover photograph by George Hallet and Peter Sinclair. Xhosa translation by Z. Pallo Jordan. Produced by Keith Beal and Chris McGregor. Ogun Recording would like to thank John Martyn for his assistance in making this album possible. Reissue for OTOROKU produced by Abby Thomas. Transferred from the original masters by Shaun Crook at Lockdown Studios. Remastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Layout for reissue by Maja Larrson. 

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.

TEYAS 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

Black Truffle is pleased to announce the first LP documenting master khene player Sombat Simla, the label’s first collaboration with Japanese sound artist, field recordist, and researcher Yasuhiro Morinaga. Simla is known in Thailand as one of the greatest living players of the khene, the ancient bamboo mouth organ particularly associated with Laos but found throughout East and Southeast Asia. His virtuosic and endlessly inventive renditions of traditional and popular songs have earned him the title ‘the god of khene’, and he is known for his innovative techniques and ability to mimic other instruments and non-musical sound, including, as a writer for the Bangkok Post describes, ‘the sound of a train journey, complete with traffic crossings and the call of barbecue chicken vendors’. Aided by a group of Thai friends, in 2018 Morinaga travelled to the Maha Sarakham province in the Isan region, arranging to meet Simla in a remote spot surrounded by rice fields. Then and there, Morinaga recorded the solo performances heard on the LP’s first side. At Morinaga’s request, Simla began with a rendition of the train song ‘Lot Fay Tay Lang’. Beginning with long tones that seem to mimic a train horn, the performance soon moves into a rapid chugging rhythm, interrupted at points by vocal exclamations and the remarkable timbre Simla produces by singing through the khene. To listeners unfamiliar with Thai music, the pentatonic scales and rhythmic chug of many of the pieces can have surprising echoes of the rawest American blues. The range of Simla’s performance is astonishing, moving from compulsive rhythmic workouts on single chords and rapid-fire runs of single notes to gentle sing-song melodies, and using a fascinating array of techniques, including a rapid tremolo that sometimes sounds almost electronic. Later the same day, Morinaga followed Simla to a cattle shed where he met percussionist Mali Moodsansee to play some molam (folk songs found in Isan and neighbouring Laos), with Pattardon Ekchatree joining in on cymbal. At times, these molam songs have a wistful, romantic character quite different from the solo pieces. Backed up by the propulsive hand drums, Simla again dazzles with his melodic fluidity, rhythmic drive, and wild displays of unorthodox technique. As Morinaga writes, ‘It felt like they had been playing together so long that their breathing was perfectly in sync, and it was like listening to the precision of James Brown’s funk’. Accompanied by extensive liner notes by Morinaga detailing the day of recording, this is a stunning document of a master musician, seamlessly integrating tradition and innovation. 

LP - Edition of 300 copies, handmade textile artwork w/ printed inner / CD Edition of 150 copies, handmade textile artwork Sylvain Chauveau has been releasing quiet and minimal compositions on various labels for more than two decades. ultra-minimal marks his debut for Sonic Pieces and takes the minimal approach even further, centring on reduction and limitation. The album was recorded live at Café Oto, London in March 2022 - one of Sylvain’s rare solo concerts and the first time he performed publicly with only acoustic instruments; no machines, no recorded sounds have been used, only piano, guitar, harmonium and melodica, played one at the time. While some of the compositions are completely new, others are live versions of previously released pieces which have either been performed close to their original or stripped-down, reduced to a single instrument and partly rearranged. This reveals a predilection for repetitions and variations that Sylvain shares with Jim Jarmusch, and at the same time it is a personal attempt to avoid electronic devices as a tool for live music. The artwork and track titles follow this reductionist idea and an aesthetic of miniaturization that Sylvain has developed for many years. They refer to the minimalist, concrete poetry that he writes regularly. In this context rewriting some of the original titles was a consistent implication to achieve a complete work, an album that perfectly represents Sonic Pieces’ aesthetics, both musically and visually.

Following on from the psychoacoustic concrète of Outside Ludlow / Desert Disco LP (BT075), Sam Dunscombe returns to Black Truffle with Two Forests / Oceanic. Dunscombe has been active in recent years on multiple fronts, including as a key member of the Berlin community of Just Intonation researchers and practitioners; working with composers like Taku Sugimoto, Mary Jane Leach, and Anthony Pateras; and the release of Horatiu Radulescu - Plasmatic Music vol. 1 (the result of many years performance research into the thought and music of this seminal Romanian spectralist). In parallel with these activities, Dunscombe has been deeply involved in research on the role of music in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, prompting these two side long pieces, composed using field recordings and digital synthesis. As Dunscombe explains in the accompanying liner notes, music plays a key role in psychedelic-assisted therapy, yet it is often restricted to stock forms of New Age, ambient and electronica. Taking seriously the potential for spatio-environmental sonic experiences to add to the therapeutic process, these two pieces are intended to suggest how ‘a music-as-environment approach may help to add options to the therapist’s toolbox’. ‘Two Forests’ begins in a central Californian sequoia grove. Bird songs and buzzing insect life are treated with a variety of time-based processing methods (slicing and recombination, primitive granular synthesis, delay, and so on), which strip the field recordings of their linear, documentary character, reframing them in an enchanted web of traces and echoes. Analysing the pitches found in the original recordings, Dunscombe used them to generate a large Just Intonation pitch set. These tones are woven slowly into the field recordings, gradually building in density and complexity until the forest has been transformed into an unreal space of infinite proportions. Emerging from this cosmic expanse in the final minutes of the piece, we find ourselves in the Amazon rainforest outside Manaus, Brazil. As Dunscombe writes, the piece creates ‘a sense of place-gone-strange, of space and time simultaneously expanding and contracting across octaves, miles, and minutes’. On ‘Oceanic’, several recordings of different beaches fade in and out to create a texture both homogenous and constantly shifting in both the rhythm of the waves and each recording's sense of depth and distance. Tones relating in simple ratios to the average rhythm of each beach float over each other, colouring the white noise texture of the field recordings with shifting hues. In both pieces, Dunscombe forgoes the easy consonance that bogs down much contemporary ambient music for a richer harmonic array informed by extended tuning practices and spectralism. The end results suggest a hitherto undreamt-of meeting of Radulescu’s undulating sonic masses and the discreetly processed location recordings of Irv Teibel’s ‘psychologically ultimate’ Environments. Looking beyond the insularity that can afflict experimental music culture, Dunscombe’s work is a moving argument for the healing power of expanded approaches to sound and music. Even outside of a psychedelics-assisted therapy, frequent immersion in Two Forests / Oceanic is almost guaranteed to produce beneficial psychological results. 

Ever unpredictable, Drumm this time takes the fellow time-traveller through what sounds like an electronic field recording, a journey through an electronic soundscape of luminescent textures that invites immersive listening.

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