It's been a busy couple of weeks as we kicked off our purchase plan for the coming year and received some of our final collections for 2024. Amid the holiday activity, I was out for a couple of days last week for my decennial endoscopy, which, I'm happy to report, went well — this squid got a clean bill of health! While that threw off my schedule briefly, I've been surrounded by excellent auditory distractions from the many outstanding albums recently added to our catalog.

Highlights include the latest Listen! Now (Fundacja Sluchaj!) releases, a few gems we had missed earlier in the year, and the newest set of FMR titles. Our last mailing list introduced the remarkable Gush 30 box set, featuring Mats Gustafsson, Sten Sandell, and Raymond Strid in performance with an impressive roster of guests. On Listen! Now, a fascinating and unexpected addition is Oils, a live concert recording of Serbian violist Szilárd Mezei with the late New York saxophonist Charles Gayle. Meanwhile, FMR offers a double CD from Mezei's Tul A Tiszan Innen Ensemble, reinterpreting Hungarian folk songs from Vojvodina through chamber-oriented jazz. Devin Gray's Rataplan imprint brings Melt the Guns II, a standout modern jazz release featuring Ralph Alessi on trumpet.

Corbett vs. Dempsey unearths the earliest known recording of Joe McPhee on Nineteen Sixty-Six, capturing McPhee primarily on (non-pocket) trumpet and recorder. A personal favorite for decades, Steve Coleman & Five Elements return with PolyTropos / Of Many Turns, a double CD of sophisticated, biology-inspired compositions performed live in France. We've also added two Paul Dunmall albums: Here Today Gone Tomorrow on RogueArt — a quartet with John Edwards, Liam Noble, and Mark Sanders — and Disappearing Worlds.

Additionally, we've picked up some excellent experimental albums from the Polish label Sublime Retreat, alongside notable releases like the final chapter of Carsten Nicolai/Alva Noto's Xerrox series, the richly immersive new Fennesz album, and a double CD compiling the late turntablist Philip Jeck's works with a spectacular set of guests.

Finally, I'd like to spotlight two albums centered on percussion that have been on repeat here. On Balance Point Acoustics, Ra Kalam Bob Moses and Jerome Bryerton present a duo of diverse percussive sources, weaving beautiful and subtle dialogs. The second, though not strictly percussion-focused, is Falter Bramnk's Music for Luminous Background, a collection of compositions performed exclusively on glass and crystal through striking, rubbing, blowing, and shaking. The textures are remarkable, and the compositions compelling, creating music that is both captivating and wonderfully suited as illuminating background listening.

Gush (Gustafsson / Sandell / Strid) + Guests: Gush 30 - Krakow 2018 [3 CD BOX SET] (Not Two)

The Gush trio — Mats Gustafsson on reeds and flute, Sten Sandell on piano, and Raymond Strid on drums — celebrate 30 years since their original formation, in extraordinary concerts at Alchemia and Manggha Hall in Krakow, joined by guests in three dynamic configurations — two sextets and a septet — for an unforgettable series of performances of irrepressible collective improvisation.

Gayle, Charles / Szilard Mezei Quartet Bass: Oils (Listen! Foundation (Fundacja Sluchaj!))

A 2009 live performance at the 15th Magyarkanizsa Jazz Festival in Serbia between Hungarian violist and composer Szilárd Mezei and US saxophonist Charles Gayle, an evocative meeting of transcendent free jazz and compositional precision, weaving Mezei's intricate scores with Gayle's profound, soul-searching improvisations; a dynamic and fiery celebration of freedom and expression.

Mezei, Szilard Tul A Tiszan Innen Ensemble: Reveszem [2 CDs] (FMR)

Exploring Hungarian folk songs from Vojvodina through the lens of jazz, Révészem, the fifth album from Szilárd Mezei and his exemplary ensemble of musicians from Vojvodina, Serbia, and Hungary, showcases a variety of configurations interpreting and expanding on these strong melodies, transforming them into a fully embraceable set of intricate compositions and inspired arrangements.

Gray / Alessi / Augustin: Melt the Guns II (Rataplan Records)

Devin Gray is a polymath: inventive drummer, intrepid composer, chief of a burgeoning record label. Gray continues his ascension with 'Melt All the Guns'... The title might suggest a recording where frustrations boil over into blurts and squeals. In fact, it's just the opposite. The protest music that the trio makes is akin to meditative paintings, vivid in scope with microscopic-level attention to detail.

Jazzmen, The w/ Joe McPhee: Nineteen Sixty-Six (Corbett vs. Dempsey)

Possibly Joe McPhee's earliest recording, this session with bassist Tyrone Crabb's band, The Jazzmen, features McPhee on trumpet alongside saxophonists Harry Hall and Reggie Marks, pianist Mike Kull, and drummer Charlie Benjamin, performing two extended pieces, including the politically charged 'Killed in Vietnam' that evolves into a passionate interpretation of Miles Davis' 'Milestones'.

Steve Coleman & Five Elements: PolyTropos / Of Many Turns [2 CDs] (Pi Recordings)

Drawn from two absolutely energetic and exciting concerts in France, saxophonist and composer Steve Coleman's Five Elements ensemble — Jonathan Finlayson on trumpet, Sean Rickman on drums, and new electric bassist Rich Brown — blend spontaneous rhythmic and tonal transformations with Coleman's inventive, biologically-inspired compositions; exhilarating!

Dunmall, Paul Quartet (w/ Noble / Edwards / Sanders): Here Today Gone Tomorrow (RogueArt)

UK saxophonist Paul Dunmall, on tenor and soprano, leads a remarkable quartet with pianist Liam Noble, bassist John Edwards, and drummer Mark Sanders, delivering free improvisation rooted in deep collective interaction and sophisticated dialogue, with Dunmall's melodic originality complementing Noble's textural ideas and Edwards and Sanders providing intense, dynamic rhythms.

Dunmall / Noble / Edwards / Sanders : Disappearing Worlds (FMR)

Recorded live at Bristol Music Rooms in March 2024, this hard-hitting modern jazz session brings together Paul Dunmall (tenor & sopranino saxophones), Liam Noble (piano), John Edwards (bass), and Mark Sanders (drums & percussion) two fiery and exploratory conversations that blend free improvisation with structural cohesiveness, a thrilling and boundary-pushing session.

Dunmall, Paul Quartet (w/ Noble / Edwards / Sanders): Here Today Gone Tomorrow (RogueArt)

UK saxophonist Paul Dunmall, on tenor and soprano, leads a remarkable quartet with pianist Liam Noble, bassist John Edwards, and drummer Mark Sanders, delivering free improvisation rooted in deep collective interaction and sophisticated dialogue, with Dunmall's melodic originality complementing Noble's textural ideas and Edwards and Sanders providing intense, dynamic rhythms.

Modelbau: Extricate (Sublime Retreat)

Re-modeling Modelbau, the long-running project of Frans de Waard (also of Kapotte Muziek, Beequeen, Goem, Zebra, Freiband, Shifts, &c), in a dark and atmospheric hour-long work of multi-tracked sound, evolving organically through 14 seamlessly connected sections that layer rich tonal and textural compositional elements, with a brooding and introspective urgency.

Fennesz: Mosaic (Touch)

Working in his new Seven Fountains studio in Vienna, guitarist and sound artist Fennesz developed these six works as a "mosaic" of elements derived from improvisation, composition and experimentation using unexpected influences and time signatures, each piece a richly immersive environment of bright harmonics with turns into intricately shadowed space.

Jeck, Philip: rpm [2 CDs] (Touch)

Collecting work from Philip Jeck's life and collaborations, including projects with Fennesz, Jah Wobble, Faith Coloccia, Gavin Bryars and Chris Watson, including Oxmardyke completed from Watson's recordings, Jana Winderen's pilot whale track, and reflections on Jeck's groundbreaking audiovisual work Vinyl Requiem (1993), showcasing his legacy of innovation in sound and performance.

Alva Noto: Xerrox Vol. 5 (Noton)

Carsten Nicolai concludes his Xerrox series with Vol. 5, an emotional work blending conceptual image-to-sound themes and sweeping melodic compositions influenced by classical instrumentation, creating a richly layered and introspective sonic experience that encapsulates his evolution from minimalist glitch aesthetics to ambient neo-classical grandeur.

Moses, Ra Kalam Bob / Jerome Bryerton: The Jugglerdrum (Balance Point Acoustics)

Drawing titles from a Paul Celan poem, legendary drummer Ra Kalam Bob Moses collaborates with Jerome Bryerton Ayotte in a subtly magical duo of sublime interaction, performing on a diverse array of percussion including drums, timbale, djembe, Zildjian and Sabian cymbals, Chinese jing cymbals, opera gongs, Paiste gongs, and sound discs to create a richly textured and deeply expressive sonic dialogue.

Bramnk, Falter: Music for Luminous Background (Sublime Retreat)

A new solo project from French composer and improviser Falter Bramnk, exploring glass and crystal as exclusive sound sources, following his "Glassical Music" series; originally conceived for six Muzzix collective musicians, Bramnk reworked and expanded the compositions featuring glass struck, rubbed, blown, and shaken, on select tracks with contributions from Sam Bodart on Crystal Baschet.

Zeena Parkins — 2024

Over the last week, the album most played on my stereo has been Zeena Parkins' Dam Against the Spring Tide on Relative Pitch. I recently wrote about her participation in Fred Frith's Cosa Brava project, another of my top albums recently, which is a studio composition of live performances of Cosa Brava. This new Parkins album is distinctive in its composition and structure, bringing together a truly diverse set of performers, improvisers, and experimenters for two live performance pieces inspired by the poetry of Walter Benjamin, after Parkins spent time with his archives in Berlin.

I'm not familiar with Benjamin's writings, but the Wikipedia description of him is fascinating:

"Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (15 July 1892 - 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, Jewish mysticism, and neo-Kantianism, Benjamin made influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem."

Parkins herself is an eclectic performer and composer, an essential part of the Downtown NY scene, having participated in a wealth of styles and approaches to music throughout her career. I can see the allure of Benjamin's unique approach as applied to her music, and this new set of works draws on a huge set of influences. Each listen has brought out new aspects of the recordings, and I anticipate many rewarding listens.

This album also drew me back to Magda Mayas' Filamental octet release, Ritual Mechanics, also on the Relative Pitch label from earlier this same year. Mayas is part of Parkins' ensemble for Dam Against the Spring Tide, and shares many stylistic mergings. Mayas' work exists mostly in the studio, assembled from individual recordings, while Parkins brings the individual performers together to merge their various approaches under direction and with independent control. Both albums are intricately expressed and take unusual and unexpected changes in direction, which I find fascinating as a listener.

Zeena's been busy this year, and another favorite album came from her long-running duo with Ikue Mori, Phantom Orchard, and their album earlier this year, Hit Parade of Tears, a series of miniature compositions and recordings inspired by the short stories of Japanese author Izumi Suzuki. If you want to hear Parkins in a more "traditional" setting (which is hardly the case), check out the early 2024 album Monochromes from Ingrid Laubrock, where she is in the company of both saxophonists Laubrock on tenor and Jon Irabagon on sopranino, with Tom Rainey on drums.

What a great year of releases from Zeena, with one more to go — in the next couple of weeks, we'll add the quartet release with Chris Brown, Ben Davis, and William Winant, Scree, also on Relative Pitch.

Parkins, Zeena: Dam Against the Spring Tide (Relative Pitch)

Drawing inspiration from the archives of philosopher Walter Benjamin, Zeena Parkins leads an extraordinary ensemble of experimental and avant-garde musicians — including William Winant, Tony Buck, Magda Mayas, and Joan La Barbara — in two intricate multi-part compositions that weave acoustic and electronic textures through improv, experimental, and contemporary forms.

Cosa Brava (Frith / Parkins / Kihlstedt / Bossi / Ismaily): Z Sides (Klanggalerie)

Guitarist & vocalist Fred Frith leads the highly creative quintet of Zeena Parkins on keys & voice, Carla Kihlstedt on violin & voice, Mathias Bossi on drums and Shahzad Ismaily on bass, merging free improv, rock and experimental forms; drawn from live performances recorded by The Normal Conquest, this set of compositions captures the group's dynamic interplay and remarkable inventiveness.

Mayas, Magda Filamental (Mayas / Abdelnour / Caddy / Davies / Davies / Mayaas / Parks / Theriot-Ramos / Thieke): Ritual Mechanics (Relative Pitch)

The 2nd release from Magda Mayas' Filamental octet of Mayas, Zeena Parkins, Michel Thieke, Christine Abdelnour, Angharad Davies, Rhodri Davies, Aimée Theriot and Anthea Caddy, is a fascinating studio composition developed from individual recordings provided by each musician, assembled into two detailed and cohesive works of impressive contours and almost ceremonial beauty.

Phantom Orchard (Ikue Mori / Zeena Parkins): Hit Parade of Tears (Tzadik)

Distilling their ensemble to its original duo configuration, New York improvisers Zeena Parkins and Ikue Mori reflect on the stories of Japanese author Izumi Suzuki through ten mysteriously eclectic and beautifully developed compositions of harp (acoustic and electric), electronics, percussion, harmonium, ondes martenot, and much more; wonderful, imaginative and evocative work.

Laubrock, Ingrid (w/ Jon Irabagon / Zeena Parkins / Tom Rainey): Monochromes (Intakt)

Saxophonist & composer Ingrid Laubrock's quartet with Jon Irabagon on sopranino sax, Zeena Parkins on electric harp and Tom Rainey on drums, in a work of conventional and graphic notation with text instructions, accompanied by fixed media tape pieces (monochromes), from Nate Wooley, Adam Matlock, Tom Rainey, and by JD Allen, David Breskin & Ingrid Laubrock manipulating Harry Bertoia sculptures.

Some Sonics to Celebrate the Season:

I don't write enough about the sound art aspect of Squidco's catalog, which is odd given how much time I spend composing in the studio myself. Since November, we've added six albums that I consider essential to my collection, and I share them below. The first is the latest from Fennesz on Touch Records, an easy recommendation for its rich and well-paced presentation. Titled Mosaic, it showcases Fennesz's masterful layering and momentum. Fennesz is also featured on the double CD retrospective from the late sound artist and turntablist Philip Jeck, rpm, also on Touch. Jeck's collaborations with Fennesz, Jah Wobble, Faith Coloccia, Gavin Bryars, and Chris Watson are each distinctive, anchored by Jeck's decisive sonic foundations.

I was particularly taken by Frans de Waard's most recent Modelbau release, Extricate, on Sublime Retreat. This album marks a significant shift in his approach to the project, moving from live recordings to multi-layering and editing his sources. The result is a deep sense of narrative and resolution in each piece, offering an engaging new direction for Modelbau.

It's bittersweet to note that Alva Noto's final volume in the Xerrox series has been released, providing a fitting moment to reflect on the series as a whole. Noto, the alias of Carsten Nicolai, delivers music with pacing and wonder that remain truly compelling. Equally captivating is Fennesz's Mosaic, where he rebuilt his studio and approached the recording with disciplined precision. This discipline yields rich layers of tones and textures, gracefully navigating unexpected twists and moments of beauty without ever becoming cloying.

Lastly, it had been some time since I heard new work from Alfredo Costa Monteiro, but Sublime Retreat corrected that with his Transient Spaces as Impermanent Lines. This single extended composition takes listeners on a shifting journey through diverse environments, inspired by found-footage techniques in cinema. Cinematic in scope, it surprises with electronics, drone, field recordings, and acousmatic suspense, making for a deeply immersive experience.

Modelbau: Extricate (Sublime Retreat)

Re-modeling Modelbau, the long-running project of Frans de Waard (also of Kapotte Muziek, Beequeen, Goem, Zebra, Freiband, Shifts, &c), in a dark and atmospheric hour-long work of multi-tracked sound, evolving organically through 14 seamlessly connected sections that layer rich tonal and textural compositional elements, with a brooding and introspective urgency.

Fennesz: Mosaic (Touch)

Working in his new Seven Fountains studio in Vienna, guitarist and sound artist Fennesz developed these six works as a "mosaic" of elements derived from improvisation, composition and experimentation using unexpected influences and time signatures, each piece a richly immersive environment of bright harmonics with turns into intricately shadowed space.

Jeck, Philip: rpm [2 CDs] (Touch)

Collecting work from Philip Jeck's life and collaborations, including projects with Fennesz, Jah Wobble, Faith Coloccia, Gavin Bryars and Chris Watson, including Oxmardyke completed from Watson's recordings, Jana Winderen's pilot whale track, and reflections on Jeck's groundbreaking audiovisual work Vinyl Requiem (1993), showcasing his legacy of innovation in sound and performance.