Udo Schindler / Paul Rogers / Ardhi Engl :
Ephemeral Essences Of LowTone Studies (For Trio) (Creative Sources)
Recorded live in Munich in December 2024, this trio performance brings together Udo Schindler, bassist Paul Rogers, and sound-builder Ardhi Engl in an expansive LowTone Studies session where shifting instrumental roles, theatrical interplay, and esoteric timbral variety generate a richly dynamic music rooted in transition, texture, and collective exploration.
... Click to View
Udo Schindler / Jordina Milla:
The Dew That Flies (Creative Sources)
Captured live in Bavaria in February 2025, these six improvisations pair frequent collaborators German wind instrumentalist Udo Schindler and Catalan pianist Jordina Milla in a series of dialogues where timbre, texture, and spontaneous interplay shape an immersive, poetic sound world influenced by Sylvia Plath's Ariel, blurring the line between composition and open improvisation. ... Click to View
Rotor (Rodrigues / Torres / Santos):
Pulses and Paradox (Creative Sources)
Recorded live at Sistema Smop in Lisbon across two performances in late 2023, the trio of Ernesto Rodrigues (viola, crackle box), Nuno Torres (alto saxophone), and Carlos Santos (digital electronics) are captured sustained improvisations where acoustic timbre and electronic gesture converge in an expansive dialogue that alternates between subtle textural pulses and unpredictable sonic paradoxes. ... Click to View
Ernesto Rodrigues / Jung-Jae Kim / Guilherme Rodrigues / Eric Bauer / Stephen Flinn:
Crossing The Floor (Creative Sources)
Emerging from Ernesto Rodrigues' post-Cage investigations, this quintet with Jung-Jae Kim, Guilherme Rodrigues, Eric Bauer, and Stephen Flinn shapes sparse, deeply relational music where strings, winds, electronics, and percussion hover in spectral balance, forming a quiet "ghost dance" of held tones and subtle motion that blurs interior and exterior spaces while sculpting time through restraint and resonance. ... Click to View
Eric La Casa / Seijiro Murayama:
Paris Public Spaces 2 (Swarming)
Recorded across various public spaces in Paris, this collaborative work extends the practice of Eric La Casa and Seijiro Murayama as they document subtle vocal interventions and field recordings that explore attentive listening, bodily presence, and sonic autonomy, positioning sound-making as a quiet, animist act of witness within complex urban environments. ... Click to View
Fortrexx:
Breathless (Love Earth Music)
Under the Fortrexx moniker, Squidco's own Phil Zampino, aka CHANGES TO blind, shapes field recordings, samples, and electronics into subliminal sonic environments that drift and mutate beneath conscious attention, forming enveloping sound tapestries that fill silence without intrusion and function fluidly at low or high volume for contemplation, altered states, or quiet immersion. ... Click to View
Peter Evans / Being & Becoming:
Ars Ludricra [VINYL + DOWNLOAD] (More Is More)
Expanding their language through dense composition and open improvisation, this iteration of Peter Evans's ensemble moves fluidly between explosive dynamics, electronic textures, orchestral color, and rhythmic propulsion, as brass, vibes, synths, and percussion interlock in a restless, polyphonic music driven by play, risk, and a continually evolving collective imagination. ... Click to View
Byron Coley / Mats Gustafsson / Thurston Moore:
Now Jazz Now: 100 Essential Free Jazz & Improvisation Recordings (1960-80) [BOOK] (Ecstatic Peace Library )
Drawing from deeply personal listening histories, this richly illustrated volume assembles 100 essential free jazz and improvisation recordings from 1960-80, presenting album art, notes, and reflections that frame the music as non-hierarchical and interlinked, offering an immersive guide for adventurous listeners interested in the lineage, spirit, and lived culture of creative freedom. ... Click to View
Leo Genovese:
Solo Brooklyn (577 Records)
Performing solo piano at the 2025 New York Forward Festival, Leo Genovese delivers a strikingly fluid and exploratory set where abstract, dreamlike themes move freely between lyricism, volatility, and spontaneous invention, revealing a deeply personal improvisational language shaped by risk, intuition, and the raw immediacy of live performance. ... Click to View
Otherlands Trio (Crump / Jones / McPherson):
Star Mountain (Intakt)
Uniting bassist Stephan Crump, drummer Eric McPherson with alto saxophonist Darius Jones, this trio channels a deeply connected improvisational language built on evolving vamps, elastic grooves, and shared momentum, as Jones's emotionally direct alto moves freely through shifting forms shaped by trust, vulnerability, and a collective pursuit of intensity without hierarchy or hesitation. ... Click to View
Nate Wooley:
A Fine Rain Anoints The Canal Machinery (Discreet Archive)
In a subtly detailed journey, Nate Wooley layers field recordings, trumpet, piano, sine tones, whistling, and bodily sound into a stark, reflective work that probes the uneasy coexistence of nature, machinery, and human presence, shaping a quietly political soundscape in which environmental detail, isolation, and mechanical intrusion collide in fragile, contrapuntal tension. ... Click to View
Eventless Plot:
Unlearning Noise (Discreet Archive)
Blending field recordings, percussion, tapes, and modular synthesis with Marina Katsarou's voice and text and Eva Matsigou's flute, Eventless Plot reshape urban sound into a finely detailed electroacoustic work that invites listeners to reconsider noise as a living, expressive presence, revealing the shifting textures, hidden meanings, and poetic potential embedded within the everyday sonic fabric of the city. ... Click to View
Ernesto Rodrigues / Fala Mariam / Andre Hencleeday / Seu Barradas:
February Find (Creative Sources)
Captured live as part of the Creative Sources Improvised Music Series in Lisbon, this quartet performance brings viola, crackle box, alto trombone, piano, and percussion into a finely balanced improvisation where texture and restraint guide the music's unfolding, revealing a deeply interactive dialogue shaped by close listening, fragile electronics, and quietly evolving sonic relationships. ... Click to View
Fohn Ensemble (Foschla / Duerinckx / Northover):
Fohn Ensemble (Creative Sources)
Bringing together clarinets, sopranino, baritone, and soprano saxophones with kyotaku (a Japanese bamboo flute) and resonant percussion, this trio shapes a highly attentive improvisation where breath, extended techniques, and shifting timbres unfold through close listening, moving fluidly between fragile textures, explosive gestures, and an organic, imaginary folklore that emerges from collective intuition. ... Click to View
Peter Evans / Mike Pride :
A Window, Basically [CD + DOWNLOAD] (Relative Pitch)
Concentrating their work from the Pulverize the Sound trio, trumpeter Peter Evans and drummer Mike Pride reveal a ferocity that pushes free improvisation to its extremes, balancing explosive virtuosity with kaleidoscopic percussive interaction through dense sound clusters, fractured grooves, unexpected silences, and wild exploration, in seven high-risk dialogs tempered by moments of striking clarity. ... Click to View
Camila Nebbia (feat/ Marilyn Crispell / Lesley Mok):
A Reflection Distorts Over Water [CD + DOWNLOAD] (Relative Pitch)
Recorded at Nevessa Studio in New York, Camila Nebbia joins Marilyn Crispell and Lesley Mok in a fiercely intuitive trio session blending open scores and full improvisation, where elastic group interplay, textural sensitivity, and eruptive momentum allow the music to breathe as a single organism while leaving space for sharply defined individual voices to emerge. ... Click to View
Zeena Parkins:
Lament For The Maker [CD + DOWNLOAD] (Relative Pitch)
Marking the closing of Mills College and the end of Zeena Parkins' long association with its experimental community, this solo release presents three commissioned works alongside the ongoing acoustic piece berlin bedroom, unfolding a deeply reflective exploration of harp and electronics that honors artistic lineage, collective devotion, and the Bay Area's enduring spirit of experimental music-making. ... Click to View
HobbyHouse (Mia Dyberg / Axel Filip):
HobbyHouse [CD + DOWNLOAD] (Relative Pitch)
This self-titled debut from the Berlin-based duo of Danish alto saxophonist Mia Dyberg and Argentine drummer Axel Filip explores freely improvised jazz through spontaneous structures and shifting sonic playgrounds, with a sharp focus on timbral nuance, textural interplay, and an upbeat creative immediacy that unfolds into vivid, evolving sound narratives rooted in exploratory expression. ... Click to View
Kelsey Mines / Erin Rogers:
Scratching At The Surface [CD + DOWNLOAD] (Relative Pitch)
This duo release pairs bassist Kelsey Mines and saxophonist Erin Rogers in a deeply interactive exploration of free improvisation, where resonant low-end textures and expressive reeds weave concise, atmospheric vignettes shaped by bold contrasts, emotional clarity, and an immersive sense of motion that balances raw energy with carefully sculpted space. ... Click to View
Kelsey Mines / Vinny Golia:
Collusion and Collaboration [CD + DOWNLOAD] (Relative Pitch)
Distilling their work from the Chamber Quintet, this intimate duo recording pairs Vinny Golia's varied woodwinds with Kelsey Mines' resonant bass and subtle vocalizations, unfolding a carefully balanced exchange of gentle and sharp gestures shaped by classical-leaning abstractions, where attentive interplay allows fluid musical forms to emerge with clarity inside open improvisational space. ... Click to View
Adia Vanheerentals :
Taking Place [CD + DOWNLOAD] (Relative Pitch)
Asked to rethink the solo sax format, Adia Vanheerentals transforms this release into a series of site-responsive improvisations, engaging the soprano sax in active dialogue with surrounding environments — echoing spaces, incidental sounds, and ambient noise — using extended techniques, breath & texture to shape concise statements where location is a partner in an open improvisational framework. ... Click to View
Uneven Eleven (Segers / Hawyard / Kawabata):
Live In Brighton (Discus)
A ferocious meeting of three seasoned innovators, this live set from Charles Hayward (drums, vocals), Guy Segers (bass), and Kawabata Makoto (guitar) channels decades of rock, punk, psychedelia, and free improvisation into an explosive power trio performance, where raw energy, shifting polyrhythms, and searing intensity collide in a fiercely immediate and unfiltered sonic assault captured on stage in Brighton in 2013. ... Click to View
Don Malfon / Vasco Trilla:
Towers of Silence (Confront)
A deeply immersive duo performance from saxophonist Don Malfon and percussionist Vasco Trilla, this exploratory session unfolds as a richly textured dialogue of breath, resonance, and rhythm, where haunting tones, shifting densities, and subtle dynamics blur the lines between experimental jazz, ambient improvisation, and abstract sound sculpture, revealing a finely balanced interplay of intensity and restraint. ... Click to View
Tom Jackson / Daniel Thompson:
Dark Kitchen (Confront)
An intimate, immersive duo recording in which Tom Jackson's finely articulated clarinet and Daniel Thompson's responsive, highly attuned guitar create a richly expressive terrain of spontaneous sound, channeling the spirit of free improvisation's pioneers in a deeply communicative exchange of timbre, space, and dynamic nuance. ... Click to View
Jurg Frey :
Composer, Alone [3 CDs] (elsewhere)
Recording at the historic Muziekcentrum van de Omroep in Hilversum, Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt performs twelve solo piano works spanning more than three decades of Swiss composer Jürg Frey's output, revealing an evolving yet remarkably consistent compositional voice through performances of great restraint, sensitivity, and quiet intensity, balancing fragility, warmth, and crystalline clarity. ... Click to View
Eliane Radigue:
Asymptote Versatile (1963-64) (Amgen Records)
An historic world-premiere recording of Éliane Radigue's earliest surviving work, performed at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, where a stellar ensemble realizes her flexible "sonic proposition" through evolving textures, mathematical spirals and dynamic transformations that foreshadow her later visionary soundworld. ... Click to View
Ilia Belorukov / Alex Riva:
Wrestling For Futility [CASSETTE w/DOWNLOAD] (Notice Recordings)
A bristling electro-acoustic duo encounter in which Ilia Belorukov's restless modular synthesis collides and intertwines with Alex Riva's recorder work and effects, generating playful yet volatile improvisations that shift between lo-fi textures, glassy winds, and surging electronic fragments, as tension, friction, and timbral curiosity drive the music through constantly mutating sonic terrain. ... Click to View
Various Artists:
Evil Clown Shorties Vol 6 (2025) (Evil Clown)
A lively sampler of Evil Clown's expansive improvisational universe, this collection assembles fourteen concise, high-energy performances drawn from livestream sessions across multiple ensembles, where shifting instrumental combinations, dense textures, and spontaneous interaction distil the label's long-form aesthetic into sharply focused bursts of collective invention. ... Click to View
Axioms:
Fundamental Statements (Evil Clown)
A tightly focused and interactive trio session pairing spoken word with expansive instrumental color,bringing Jane's incisive poetry into close dialogue with Albey onBass's grounded sonorities and David Peck's wide-ranging reeds, electronics, and resonant objects, revealing an articulated improvisational language where text, texture, and collective intuition lock together. ... Click to View
Simulacrum:
Replicants (Evil Clown)
A densely layered electro-acoustic ensemble improvisation in which expanded electronics, tightly integrated horns, and richly colored percussion generate a constantly evolving sonic field, balancing muscular collective energy with intricate textural detail as shifting instrumental roles and deep ensemble cohesion drive a forward-moving exploration of sound and form. ... Click to View
|
|
The Squid's Ear is the companion magazine to the online music shop Squidco ! |