October 2, 2026:
Apologies for the nearly two-week gap between entries. I was out sick for a few days with an internal infection that is fortunately resolving. During that time, my priority while at work was getting new releases onto the store and making sure we were ready for the release of our eighth album on Squid Note Records. Some phenomenal records have come in, or been added to our catalog, since my last blog entry, from labels including Fou Records, Ftarri, Relative Pitch Records, Tzadik, Fataka, Mahakala, CLM, and 4Da Records — my favorites of which are noted below. We also ran a sale in collaboration with Les Disques VICTO, celebrating the label's 40th anniversary. Many thanks to our customers for showing their love for this great and important label!
Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp - Duologues 7: Distillation.
This is our eigth release on Squid Note Records, and we couldn't be more proud to have this in our catalog!
Ivo Perelman has also announced that Squid Note Records will be releasing a duo with Matthew Shipp every year on our label going forward. It's great news for us, and reaffirms our commitment to getting new music out into the world.
Out Now!
Duologues 7: DistillationA new duo album from Ivo Perelman and Matthew Shipp!
Click the album cover to preview or purchase at Squid Note Records.
We're also selling a limited edition of the album, with the cover, tracking listing and credits printed on a quality card stock album facsimile, with a download code on the back. There are only 100 of them and about 30 have gone out already, so here's how to add this keepsake to your collection.
GREAT NEWS!
Squidco will release a new Perelman/Matt Shipp duo every year IN PERPETUUM.
The first one comes out October 2nd, Duologues 7 "Distillation"
Here you can pre-order it and listen to track 4( Vol 1) and track 9( Vol 2) — Ivo Perelman
Philz Weekly Recommendations:
For my collection, the new 4-CD Jon Rose box is the standout release of the last two weeks. At only $24.95, it's an extraordinary package, with a thick booklet packed with credits and color images of Rose's wonderfully strange instruments -- and even a few curious clocks. Across the set, Rose ranges widely through the ideas that have defined his work: free improvisation, electroacoustic experiments using instruments he has built himself and devices by innovators such as Cor Fuhler, fractured approaches to classical music, and his famous recordings of fences across Australia. One piece is even powered by bicycles! What makes the set especially compelling is the sequencing, which keeps shifting the ground beneath you as Rose moves from one concept and sound world to another, turning the box into a genuinely adventurous listening journey.
On the more aggressive side comes the latest album from Marteau Rouge, this time with saxophonist Daunik Lazro. If you're not familiar with the band: Formed in the early 1990s by guitarist Jean-Francois Pauvros, electronics player Jean-Marc Foussat, and drummer Makoto Sato, French trio Marteau Rouge fuse free improvisation, noise, and free rock into a volatile language of amplified guitar, analog electronics, voice, and highly physical percussion. Their dense, spontaneous sound has also proven remarkably open to collaboration, particularly with saxophonists such as Evan Parker, whose tenor and soprano became another force within the trio's turbulent electric environment.
Fataka's latest is an incredible example of improvisational language from masterful players Paul Lytton, Eddie Prevost, Nate Wooley, and Seymour Wright, who present four journeys -- two "Parallels" and two "Diagonals" -- using metaphoric geometry to reflect their interactions. With relationships ranging from established partnerships to dormant connections and completely new pairings, the quartet creates a richly layered improvisational setting that often envelops the listener, their playing shaped as much by familiarity as by discovery, each musician bringing a distinct voice to a meeting whose possibilities remain genuinely open.
I found Jessica Pavone's latest album especially interesting, mixing solo work with a handful of spare but fascinating duos. "Spare" may be the better word than "frugal," particularly for her track with Fred Frith, who adds layers of guitar sonics to Pavone's solo material in a collaboration assembled remotely. Her piece with Joe Lally was similarly constructed through file exchange, his bass bringing distinctive punctuation to the finished work. I didn't recognize Lally's name at first, but I certainly knew his playing: he was the bassist and a founding member of Fugazi.
I'm still delving into Ikue Mori's CD/DVD release, but so far I'm impressed by both the sound and the visuals she presents. Her collaborators include Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura, Koichi Makigami, and Zeena Parkins, all musicians with whom she has worked in various configurations over many years. Those connections extend through projects involving Jim Staley, Phantom Orchard Orchestra, Fred Frith and Ensemble Modern, Mahobin, and Wadada Leo Smith, giving the release a strong sense of continuity with the many musical relationships Mori has developed across her career.
I spent a bit of time with the ZTT label in the '80s, but somehow never pursued Andrew Poppy's work until False Walls reissued his classic The Beating of Wings. What a revelation! Poppy brings the repetition and pulse of contemporary minimalism into contact with rock and electronic elements, using orchestral winds, brass and strings alongside piano, electric piano, guitar, bass, sampler, Fairlight and drum machine. If Steve Reich or Philip Glass are reference points for you, there's plenty here to latch onto, but Poppy's approach is very much his own. I've really been enjoying this beautifully remastered reissue.
 Rose, Jon: Rosenberg Museum [4 CDs] (Relative Pitch)
A five-CD survey of Jon Rose's Rosenberg Museum, the violinist's decades-long Gesamtkunstwerk of invented, altered and repurposed string instruments, documenting a practice that treats the violin as a limitless field for acoustic experiment, cultural critique and sonic invention, with John Oswald contributing to this expansive archive of new instruments, new sounds and unstable musical histories.
 Marteau Rouge / Daunik Lazro : Marteau Rouge (Fou Records)
Reuniting after a nine-year hiatus, Marteau Rouge — Jean-Francois Pauvros, Jean-Marc Foussat and Makoto Sato — joins longtime associate Daunik Lazro on tenor saxophone for a live Montreuil performance of seven compact improvisations, merging distorted guitar, Synthi AKS electronics, percussion, voices and toys with Lazro's incisive tenor in a volatile mix of free jazz, noise and free rock.
 Lytton, Paul / Eddie Prevost / Nate Wooley / Seymour Wright : Parallels & Diagonals (Fataka)
Recorded live at Cafe Oto, this first-time quartet of percussionists Paul Lytton and Eddie Prevost, trumpeter Nate Wooley and saxophonist Seymour Wright brings together overlapping histories of long-standing, renewed and entirely new collaborations, using those contrasting degrees of familiarity to shape a freely improvised performance of shifting alliances, layered interaction and distinct individual voices.
 Mori, Ikue: Enchanted and Delighted [CD + DVD] (Tzadik)
NYC electronic composer and improviser Ikue Mori gathers music created from 2016-2025 into an imaginative CD/DVD work pairing her intricate electronic worlds with handmade dolls, puppets, animation and miniature sets, joined on pieces by Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura, Koichi Makigami, and Zeena Parkins in eight pieces moving through fantasy, science fiction, Japanese ghost imagery and detailed electroacoustic sound.
 Poppy, Andrew: The Beating of Wings: 40th Anniversary Edition (False Walls)
Marking 40 years since its 1985 ZTT release, Andrew Poppy's landmark The Beating of Wings returns newly remastered by Stephan Mathieu, presenting four prescient post-minimal works where Poppy's piano, keyboards, voice and sampler, Glyn Perrin's electric piano, orchestral winds, brass and strings, guitar, bass, Fairlight and drum machine merge acoustic composition with the studio as a compositional instrument.
Squidco Publishing Roundup:
You can view our latest fully cataloged albums in the Recently Section.
You can also browse new titles as they enter our Just In Stock Section — meaning we physically have the album and can ship it, though we may still be updating additional information about the release.
To see restocks of previously listed titles, visit our Recently Restocked page.
And if you're interested in a future release, you can ask us to notify you by email via our Upcoming Releases page — no obligation necessary.
September 18, 2026:
Philz Weekly Recommendations:
After a long weekend I started listening to this week's new releases, with a few very interesting or exciting releases. First would be the Corbett vs. Dempsey issue of Alexander von Schlippenbach's Main Lines/1967, an early example of the Euro Free Improv approach to jazz and free improvisations in a wildly exciting sets from the mergings of the Manfred Schoof Quintet, the Peter Brotzmann Quartet, and the Irene Schwiezer Trio, Schlippenbach being the pivot point of the sets (hence his name on this issue).
Second up for me was the reissue of Albert Ayler's 1964 recording session, initially released as Swing Low, Sweet Spiritual. These are lyrical takes on traditional numbers, reflecting Ayler's gospel roots, and are presented with alternate takes on three of the pieces. With Henry Grimes and Suny Murray, the tunes are grounded with superb playing, pianist Call Cobbs bringing his R&B influence to the album.
Myra Melford's Fire and Water Quintet third release on RogueArt was perhaps my most played album of the week, titled Sure Grand Out, and bringing back the superb grouping with Ingrid Laubrock on saxophones, Mary Halvorson on guitar, Tomeka Reid on cello and Lesly Mok on drums. Led by Melford's clever and sophisticated compositions, the band brings out wonderful group interaction and excellent soloing.
More wild improv comes from the duo of Keiji Haino and percussionist Steve Noble, performing live at Cafe OTO in London. The two approach their playing in bursts of sonic intensity, that breathe in respites then launch forward with exhilaration as the two challenge each other and meet each opportunity with masterful playing on the edge of chaos. Through four improvisations the two present a great diversity of sound and excitement, bringing the listener to the cliff's edge frequently then pulling back for introspection.
We hadn't ordered from the Ftarri label group in quite a while, so the next few weeks will see us adding twenty (!) new albums on Ftarri itself, Hitorri, Meena, and Ftarri Uta. Thsi week starts with Junji Hirose's solo set at Pool, in Tokyo: SSI Solo 2024. Always interesting, Hirose plays on self-made instruments, which includes a bicycle wheel that is heard in rotation. We also added a quartet album from Bryan Eubanks (with whom we carry his excellent Sacred Realism label), Gert-Jan Prins, Tetuzi Akiyama and Toshimaru Nakamura, in a work assembled from unique recordings by each into a larger work of texture, tone and unexpected interplay.
In the realm of tone and texture, Christian Wolfarth completes his triptych 39 series with Parts VII - IX, released on his own Hiddenbell label. The percussionist balances each part with assertive sections of dense repetition yielding to curiously interesting percussive transitions and field recordings. Wolfarth uses skin, metal, resonance, environmental sound and silence to create three unique journeys of sonic environments that keep one's ears perked and engaged.
On the meditative side, Important Records has reissued Eliane Radigues album actually named Triptych, released as a double LP with three renderings of the work, the fourth side of the album an etching. Originally staged at the premiere at the Dancehall/Theatre of Nancy on February 27 1978, this is an album to turn up for the detail and warmth of her electronic compositions, drawing its inspiration from "the spirit of the fundamental elements, water, air, fire, earth."
I end with kudos to the latest Henry Threadgill Zooid release on Pi Recordings, which brings the band up to eight albums. I started listening to Threadgill in the 80s, and each new album is a happy addition to his unique approach to jazz compositions that uses a unique language of an interval-based system that reimagines harmonic relationships while granting freedom to the performers navigating them. For those who prefer their releases on vinyl, the LP edition should be available in the next couple of weeks.
 Threadgill Zooid, Henry: Cut You Where You Was (Pi Recordings)
Composer and reedist Henry Threadgill reconvenes his long-running Zooid quintet with Liberty Ellman on acoustic guitar, Jose Davila on tuba and trombone, Christopher Hoffman on cello, and Elliot Humberto Kavee on drums, extending his interval-based language through shifting meters, compact forms, and non-hierarchical interplay in music that balances structural rigor with elastic, conversational improvisation.
 Schlippenbach, Alexander Von: Main Lines/1967 (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
A remarkable 1967 Radio Bremen session uniting leading figures of emerging European free improvisation, with Alexander von Schlippenbach, Irène Schweizer and Fred van Hove on piano; Peter Brötzmann and Gerd Dudek on saxophones; Manfred Schoof and Manfred Miller on brass; three bassists; and Sven-Åke Johansson, Jaki Liebezeit and Mani Neumeier on drums and percussion.
 Ayler, Albert Quartet: Reference: Goin' Home 1964 (ALAY)
A strikingly restrained side of Albert Ayler emerges on this 1964 session of spirituals and devotional songs, with his tenor and soprano saxophones joined by Call Cobbs Jr. on piano, Henry Grimes on double bass and Sunny Murray on drums, emphasizing melody, blues-inflected tone and deep vibrato while revealing the gospel and New Orleans roots underlying his more radical later language.
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Ivo Perelman / Matthew Shipp:
Ishmael Ali (Ishmael / Wilkerson / Wilkes / Baker / Tong / Harris):
Marta Warelis (w/ LaMar Gay / Baars / Ng / Haker Flaten / Rosaly):
Maya Bennardo / Erik Blennow Calalv / Kristofer Svensson:
Charles K. Noyes:
Marco Fusi / Pierre Alexandre Tremblay:
Dominic Lash / Mark Wastell:
Amanda Irarrazabal:
Sylvia Lim:
Tom Challenger & Evan Parker:
