John Butcher / Dominic Lash / John Russell / Mark Sanders:
Discernment (Spoonhunt)

An album of perceptive free improvisation recorded live at London's Cafe OTO from the quartet of John Butcher on tenor & soprano saxophones, Dominic Lash on double bass, John Russell on guitar and Mark Sanders on drums & percussion, three "discerning" and one "discerned" dialogs of discriminating sophistication that only four such masterful and experienced musicians can convey. ... Click to View

Dominic Lash Quartet (w / Carmona / Tejero / Ward):
Limulus (Spoonhunt)

Honing their conversation in their third release as a band, British double bassist Dominic Lash's Quartet with Javier Carmona on drums & percussion, Ricardo Tejero on alto saxophone and Alex Ward on electric guitar are heard live at Cafe OTO in London, Lash providing all compositions and arrangements over six wide-ranging, edgy and innovative improvisations; outstanding! ... Click to View

Consorts:
Distinctions (Spoonhunt)

Composer Dominic Lash's Consort ensemble explores the possibilities of combining sustained-tone music, guided & free improvisation, and the relationship between acoustic and amplified sound, heard in this evolving, extended concert at Café Oto on Lash's 40th birthday, in a unique mix of acoustic & electronic instruments that even includes an amplified kitchen sink! ... Click to View

Mototeru Takagi Quartet:
Live At Little John, Yokohama 1999 (NoBusiness)

Three reed & wind players and a drummer from Japanese saxophonist Mototeru Takagi's collective free improvising quartet with fellow saxophonist Susumu Kongo, Nao Takeuchi on tenor sax plus flute & bass clarinet, and drummer Shota Koyama, recorded live in 1999 at Little John in Yokohama, Japan for three well-paced conversations of weaving winds and rhythmic intervention. ... Click to View

Itaru Oki Quartet:
Live At Jazz Spot Combo 1975 (NoBusiness)

Late Japanese free jazz trumpeter and flute player Itaru Oki, one of the significant and early free jazz players in Japan in the 1970s, moving to France in the mid-70s to seek more opportunities to play, recorded this concert at Jazz Spot Combon as part of his farewell tour, performing with winds player Yoshiaki Fujikawa, bassist Keiki Midorikawa ad drummer Hozumi Tanaka. ... Click to View

Bob Bellerue (feat. Brandon Lopez / Luke Stewart / Jessica Pavone):
Radioactive Desire [2 CDs] (Elevator Bath)

A fascinating work for free chamber music in feedback environments devised by sound artist Bob Bellerue and employing the talents of improvisers Brandon Lopez & Luke Stewart (double bass), Jessica Pavone (viola), Gabby Fluke-Mogul (violin) and Ed Bear (baritone sax), Bellerue performing on electronics, unattended instruments, feedback, suling gambuh, junk metal & cymbals. ... Click to View

Christian Ronn / Bob Bellerue :
Intoku Inversions (Anarchy Moon Recordings/Nishe)

Beautiful long-form drones and harmonic interactions develop and are then shaken up with sonic deformations and collisions, returning to beautiful environments and then reversed once again, from the duo of sonic explorers Bob Bellerue and Christian Ronn, recording in Copenhagen using organs, electronics, winds, and feedback to create these wonderfully alien domains. ... Click to View

David Myers Lee:
Reduced to a Geometrical Point (Cronica)

Using feedback matrices, oscillator banks and multi-processing, NYC sound and feedback artist David Lee Myers, A.K.A. Arcane Device, references the quote from metaphysics scholar Frithjof Schuon--"You must detach your life from an awareness of the multiple and reduce it to a geometrical point before God"--which he manifests in four focused works of rich, slowly evolving sound. ... Click to View

PEK Solo:
Completeness for Flutes and Double Reeds (Evil Clown)

Boston improviser and multi-instrumentalist David Peck (PEK) in a solo album using his Quartet of PEKs formats, improvising in the studio through four layers, presenting the final installment of a triptych of albums constrained to one or two woodwind instrument families - this one for flutes and double reeds, along with nadaswaram, shenai, goat horn, dizi, bass tromboon, &c &c. ... Click to View

PEK Solo:
Complex and Real Dimensions (Evil Clown)

Before initiating the live improvisation that makes up Complex & Real Dimensions, reedist and multi-instrumentalist David Peck built a foundation track including electro-acoustic instruments created by Tim Kaiser, particularly the loop-capable "Large Spring Box", creating tone, timbre and interludes over which PEK passionately performs. ... Click to View

Evan Parker Electroacoustic Quartet:
Concert in Iwaki (Uchimizu Records)

Requested to organize a Japanese tour focused on the electroacoustic aspects of Evan Parker's work, the saxophonist distilled his larger Electracoustic Ensemble to the quartet of himself, Paul Lytton on percussion & live electronics, Joel Ryan on computer and Lawrence Casserley on signal processing, heard here in the resonant space of the Iwaki City Art Museum in Fukushima. ... Click to View

Satoko Fujii:
Piano Music (Libra)

A stunning sound collage made from recorded fragments of Fujii's studio piano, captured inside and out using traditional piano sonorities and preparations that often microscopically detail the instrument, then edited into two electroacoustic compositions of startling and unexpected expansiveness and wonder; a unique and fascinating release in Fujii's large oeuvre. ... Click to View

Flying Luttenbachers, The:
Negative Infinity [VINYL] (ugEXPLODE / GOD Records)

Adhering to the tenets of "Dissonance, Speed, Aggression, Weirdness, and Singularity", Weasel Walter leads his Flying Luttenbachers in their 15th album of no wave, punk jazz & brutal prog, Weasel switching to guitar and yielding the drum chair to Sam Ospovat, as the band rips through ridiculously complex twists and turns, even taking on Albert Ayler's strange '66/'67 musical suites. ... Click to View

Forbes / Young / Walter:
Hard Living (ugEXPLODE)

Merging Tiger Hatchery's tenor saxophonist Michael Forbes and bassist Andrew Scott Young and newly arrived to NYC Flying Luttenbacher leader & drummer Weasel Walter, for classic hardcore free jazz of articulate and demanding improvisation; this a recently unearthed studio recording from 2010, captured two years after their first encounter in a quartet with Jeb Bishop. ... Click to View

Rodrigues / Carvalho / Rodrigues / Valinho:
Eclipse (Creative Sources)

Emulating a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse in two evolving improvised chamber works that take the quartet of Guilherme Rodrigues on cello, Mariana Carvalho on piano, Joao Valinho on percussion and Ernesto Rodrigues (switching from viola to harp & deploying electronics) through mysterious soundwork that move from darkness to light in detailed and subtle ways. ... Click to View

Four Letter Words (Piet / Wark / Harris):
Pinch Point (Amalgam)

The first fully improvised album from the Chicago trio of Jake Wark on tenor saxophone, Matt Piet on piano and Bill Harris on drums, recording at Experimental Sound Studios in 2018 for seven numbered and concise improvisations, running the gamut from rapidly active yet controlled interaction and investigatory conversations of confident expression and creative drive. ... Click to View

Yoon-Ji Lee :
Padong (zOaR Records)

Five compositions from Yoon-Ji Lee, whose work employs unconventional and nonlinear structures that focus on quick transformations of language, noise, texture, and tonal color, here with five works, one performed by JACK Quartet & Mivos Quaret, a work for solo Saenghwang, a solo piano work, a string quartet, and a mixed chamber ensemble. ... Click to View

Ciao Ciao Cello:
Quiero Ver A Ese Monstruo (zOaR Records)

The Berlin-based trio of guitarist Beat Keller performing on feedbacker electric guitar & acoustic guitar, innovative tuba improviser Jack Adler-McKean and Spanish vocalist & performance artist Lorena Izquierdo Aparicio take on their monsters in five unique and disturbing improvisations recorded in the studio, as they "dance on the fine line between terror and joy". ... Click to View

Elliot Sharp :
Binibon (Henceforth)

A modern spoken opera by NY composer Elliott Sharp and librettist/narrator Jack Womack (Terraplane) with several narrators, reflecting the events surrounding a 1981 killing in New York's East Village, set in a darkly instrumental soundtrack developed by Sharp using guitars, saxophones, clarinets, synthesizers, bass, percussion, drums programming and samples. ... Click to View

GPS Trio (Chris Pitsiokos / Luke Stewart / Devin Gray):
Blast Beat Blues (Rataplan Records)

Hard-edged NYC free jazz in a limited EP CD release from the trio of alto saxophonist Chris Pitsiokos, bassist Luke Stewart and drummer & composer Devin Gray, who explains that the music reflects "the modern world we're all trying to live in, with that odd mix of the comfortable and uncomfortable", as heard in the edgy and dynamic power of his group. ... Click to View

John Coltrane:
Chasin The Trane, Revisited (ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)

The 4-night engagement at the Village Vanguard in November 1961 with sidemen Eric Dolphy, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, Jimmy Garrison & Elvin Jones resulted in saxophonist John Coltrane's 1962 "Live at the Village Vanguard" album, his evolving freedom surprisingly divisive and even decried as "anti-jazz", here reissued and remastered with a bonus version of "Spiritual". ... Click to View

Elliott Sharp's Terraplane:
Century (zOaR Records)

An unflinching look at life in post-Reconstruction America, commemorating the anniversary of Nancy Cunard's 1934 collection of African-American writings, poems, and song lyrics titled Negro: An Anthology, from Elliott Sharp's Terraplane, with vocalists Tracie Morris, Eric Mingus, Mikel Banks, and instrumentalist including Sharp, Dave Hofstra, recordings from Hubert Sumlin, &c. ... Click to View

Szilard Mezei Tubass Quintet:
Rested Turquoise (NoBusiness)

Four double basses and a tuba, recorded in an arc to elucidate the sound of each instrumentalist, in Serbian improviser and composer Szilárd Mezei's deep-rooted Tubass Quintet, Mezei taking one of the double bass roles in place of his typical viola & violin work, as his compositions bring the deep instruments into both foundational and melodic territory. ... Click to View

Per Gardin / Vasco Trilla:
Singularity (Creative Sources)

Swedish saxophonist Per Gärdin on alto and soprano, and Spanish percussionist Vasco Trilla performing primarily on timpani & gongs, along with clock chimes, metronomes and a drum set, recording in the studio between 2020 & 2021 in both Stockholm and Barcelona, the two favoring spacious environments for their improvisations as they expand and dissipate energy in perceptive ways. ... Click to View

Ongon:
Exuvia [WHITE VINYL] (Loup editions)

String player Antonio Bertoni (Leo Records, Astral Sprits) in his solo Ongon project seeks to bring back the shamanic elements of Moroccan Gnawa Music, particularly using the trance-inducing bass instrument guimbri, his hypnotic and exotic music set into a rich weaving of electronics, samples and concrete synthesis built ad hoc by Bertoni himself. ... Click to View

Ongon:
In Dispersione [VINYL] (Loup editions)

Antonio Bertoni's solo Ongon project, trying to remove the mistreatment that the Moroccan Gnawa Music suffers due to the heavy western productions, as he performs on the trance-inducing bass instrument guimbri, his hypnotic and exotic music set into a rich weaving of electronics, samples and concrete synthesis built ad hoc by Bertoni himself; reference Natural Information Society. ... Click to View

La Sprezzatura Ensemble: Jones, Jean Claude (JC) / Esti Kenan Ofri / Oren Fried:
Abstract Formative Discourse (Kadima)

Evocatively drawing on the exotic sounds and rigorous tenacity of the Middle East, The Sprezzatura Ensemble of Esti Kenan Ofri on voice, Jean Claude Jones on lap-style Spanish guitar and Oren Fried on drums and percussion, particularly classical & traditional drums & ringing tambourine bells, present five freely improvised chants recorded in Jerusalem between 2017-18. ... Click to View

Alexander Zethson :
Pole Of Inaccessibility [2 CDs] (thanatosis produktion)

Darkly meditative and somber compositions for the lower registers of the grand piano accompanied by synthesizer, in two extended pieces by Je Suis! and Angles 9 pianist Alexander Zethson, using the interactions between the deep piano keys and synth more as a sound source than as a distinct instrument, each reshaping the other to create a cloud of sound. ... Click to View

Kevin Corcoran / Jacob Felix Heule:
Erosion [CASSETTE + DOWNLOAD] (Notice Recordings)

An improvisational investigation into two bass drums over two extended recordings from West Coast experimental improvisers Kevin Corcoran and Jacob Felix Heule, as they apply an arsenal of unusual techniques and engage every inch of the drums with a diverse set of objects, evoking strange sounds, pattering rhythmic echoes, metallic cries and deep rumbling effects. ... Click to View

Judith Berkson:
Liederkreis II [CASSETTE + DOWNLOAD] (Notice Recordings)

Featuring electronically-augmented vocal interpretations of lieder songs by such composers as Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann, New York vocalist Judith Berkson also presents purely electronic pieces engaging noise and feedback-oriented vignettes, the evolution of her project started in 2016 as she re-contextualizes classical music in powerfully expressive ways. ... Click to View