An amazing journey in sound and voice from saxophonist/vocalist Joane Hetu with five singers/narrators/musicians/noise-makers and layered field recordings, a remarkable and sophisticated work about sex, loss, death, art, & politics.

A musical theatre in 3 acts using texts, songs, free improvisation and compositional textures, "an evocation of the fusion between opposite forces-tight and flexible, male and female".

Chester Hawkins' curiosity for Denmark resulted in his renting an apartment in central Kobenhavn, bringing along his electronically modified lapsteel guitar, wind and reed instruments, tabletop noise-boxes, mobile synthesizer apps and a shortwave radio, which he joined with field recordings from the capital region, creating this magnificent loveletter to Denmark.

A masterful performance at Radio Studio Zurich in Switzerland in 2018 from London jazz pianist Alexander Hawkins, improvising over a wide range of interests from jazz & blues to avant compositional work, with impressive skill as he runs complex and diverging figures on each hand that are coherent and exhilarating to follow, balanced with beautiful reflective sections.

A series of musical "mobiles" from European composer Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, sonic transformations of the visual experiences of Alexander Calder's dynamic sculptures.

Ensemble Recherche plays chamber music pieces by Polish composer Roman Haubenstock-Ramati that are dynamically explosive and allow for the free communicating of the musicians.

Melodic and texturally rich jazz from the trio of pianist Jackson Harrison with Ben Waples on double bass and brother James Waples on drums, a lyrical album of original compositions named for the process of coalescing a powder into a solid by heating it without liquefaction.

The debut album of this focused and intrepid Chicago trio led by saxophonist Dave Rempis with young stalwarts Ryan Packard on percussion and electronics, and Netherlands transplant Albert Wildeman, for three extended improvisations recorded live and in the studio.

A reissue of the 2002 Chloe label album, where Jean Luc Guionnet on alto saxophone, Dan Warburton on violin, and Eric La Casa on microphones use the ambiance of the Paris Pre Saint-Gervais metro station as the starting point for free improvisations, using their surrounding as inspiration while they record a most unusual album of urban sound and discourse.

Guillermo Gregorio produces a series of compositions that reinterprets the structural concepts of Constructivism, Concretism, and Madi, focusing on the physicality of sound.

An intense live concert in Bristol, UK of collective free improvisation using insane technique and ecstatic drive from the quartet of Philip Gibbs on guitar & banjo, Marcello Magliocchi on drums, Adrian Northover on soprano & alto saxophones, and Maresuke Okamoto on cello & voice, a wonderfully skilled example of unexpected directions in creative free playing.

Sporadic sonic exchanges exploring guidelines, graphic scores, or completely improvised, with an expansive instrumentorium from the sextet of Magali Babin, Andrea-Jane Cornell, Martine H Crispo, Anne-Francoise Jacques, Emilie Mouchous, and Erin Sexton.

A West Coast trio of electric and acoustic jazz from Patrick Shiroishi on alto & soprano saxophones, Dylan Fujioka on drums, and Paco Casanova on keyboards and electric piano, performing live at The Museum of Contemporary Art in LA in 2017 for an extended journey, at times psychedelic and others contemporary but always serious, revelatory and commanding.

Satoko Fujii Orchestra New York in a work based on the Chinese zodiac, referred to as "Eto", in a celebration of husband and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura's 60th birthday, and of the 12 animals of the zodiac.

Pianist Satoko Fujii in eight solo compositions and a traditional Japanese folk song, recorded in New York City, 1996 and remastered in 2004.

The counterpart to Montreal bass clarinetist Lori Freedman's album "Excess" of recordings from her 11-city North American solo tour "The Virtuosity of Excess", this CD "Solor" was developed after that tour allowing Freedman to focus on her past and current creative work, presenting 5 of her solo compositions, 3 of which were written for the album, plus two improvisations.

Pianist Danny Fox's trio with bassist Chris van Voorst van Beest and drummer Max Goldman in an album showing how the tight rapport this touring band has developed on the road, performing Fox's melodic and inventive compositions with a wealth of influences and style.

Four large and distinctive works by composer Christopher Fox performed by pianist Philip Thomas, who also writes the liner notes about the works, revealing and explaining the compositional elements, piano preparations, and physical requirements placed on the performer.

If any artist deserves the moniker "world music" it's Kali Z. Fasteau, who embraces a wide set of instruments with both seriousness and wonder, performing here on drum set, nai flute, viola, mizmar, aquasonic, and voice, alongside Kidd Jordan (sax) and L. Mixashawn Rozie (winds).

A wonderfully inventive and enjoyable solo guitar album from Montreal guitarist Bernard Falaise, a member of Miriodor, Klaxon Gueule, les Projectionnistes, Diesel and other groups, here mostly focused on acoustic guitar with open turning fed into effects pedals, alongside pieces for electric guitar, glockenspiel and melodica; magnifique!

Submerging the listener into the immediacy of pure perception through the economy of materials and atemporality, Catalan guitarist Ferran Fages presents the 3rd piece of his trilogy for guitar and sinteones, referencing Feldman, Lucier and Szlavnics as he specifies tunings for the guitar accompanied by pure resonating sinetones used as memory vehicles or shadows.

The New York free improvising trio of Matthew Heyner (Test, Malkuth) on bass, Matt Lavelle on trumpet and clarinet and Ryan Sawyer (Tall Firs, Stars Like Fleas) on drums in the follow-up to their 2005 Utech double CD "Embracing The Tide / Making Eye Contact With God", an impressive release of expressive technique and ritualistic drive.

"Poisonous" is an auditory hallucination created with simple tools--acoustic trumpet and drums--from NY free improvisers Peter Evans and Weasel Walter, presenting seven pieces of forceful, modern abstraction, blurring the lines between composition and improvisation in a display of impeccable technical skill, mindboggling energy, and wonderfully twisted inspiration.

Taking song titles from the Arawak language, the Estamos Trio of Thollem McDonas (piano), Milo Tamez (drums) and Carmina Escobar (voice & electronics) brings together artists from the Mexican/U.S. border, creating beautiful creative works.

Ellery Eskelin performing solo on tenor saxophone at 61 Local in Brooklyn, NY, four original compositions, personal and distinctive improvisation like listening to tales from a well seasoned and adept traveler.

Montreal's superb ensemble of improvisers explore the integration of composed music with improvisation, here in 3 graphic scores from from Danielle Palardy Roger, Joane Hetu, and Lisa Cay Miller, allowing individual performers extensive freedom within fixed compositional frameworks leading to extraordinary and unexpected results, captured lived at Amphitheatre du Gesu in 2017.

Ensemble SuperMusique devotes itself to Montreal's "Musique Actuelle" and free improv community in assemblages of some of their finest players, here in a live concert in 2016 at Amphitheater du Gesu in Montreal with a stunning set of performers presenting the work of 4 composer.

Using sampler, dictaphone, and voice, the duo of Sidsel Endresen and Jan Bang improvise and interact to create unorthodox hybrids of fractured electronics and articulated word, as edgy and engaging as it is unusual, captured live at Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene, in Oslo, Norway in 2016, a great followup to Bang's "And Poppies From Kandahar" Samadhi album.

An album of improvised electronics from frequent collaborators Paul Dunmall on a Yamaha WX11 electronic wind instrument, and Philip Gibbs performing on electric guitar, in 9-parts exploring the unusual tonalities in both expansive and highly technical approaches.

The pairing of German trumpeter Axel Dorner, and NY-born experimental artist Jason Kahn living and performing in Zurich, brings the tradition of avant free jazz and nonidiomatic improvisation into an unusual merging of techniques and approaches, each applying their advanced virtuosity to this intense concert, recorded during Hamburg's Zoom In Festival, 2017.

Two slow-motion radio pieces by Swiss audio artist Herbert Distel that blur the threshold between the "real" sound world and the sonic realms of illusion and imagination.

Eleven songs by Montreal trombonist Scott Thomson, settings of poems by P.K. Page (1916-2010), one of Canada's distinguished literary figures, in a band with Pierre Tanguay on drums, Yves Charuest on sax, Nicolas Caloia on double bass, and Susanna Hood on vocals.

With many participants from Ensemble Musique and the Montreal Musique Actuelle scene, composer and multi-instrumentalist Jean Derome directs an ensemble into the exploration of electricity and "Resistances", blending electronics, turntable, 60 Hz hums and other electronics into an orchestra of improvisers executing his dynamic 16 movement composition.

A series of unusual compositions originally written by Jacques Demmiere and Vincent Barras, here reworked by Demmiere and violinist Anouck Genthon, each piece focusing on sounds, breaths, frictions, silences, vowels and consonants, weaving and complementing each other through a mix of traditional, extended and unconventional techniques; fascinating.

Married and working as a duo since 1987, Swiss pianist Hildegard Kleeb and trombonist Roland Dahinden have a rare telepathic link in their freely improvised duos, informed by their work with Anthony Braxton, Alvin Lucier, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Christian Wolff, &c. &c.

Four composers - John Carisi, Eddie Sauter, Christian Wolff, and Stefan Wolpe - create a program of works with a measured balance in the interrelated and contrasting material.

Two generations of improvisers--Valentin Ceccaldi on cello the senior, and the younger performer, David Chevallier on electric guitar and 6- and 12-stringed acoustic guitars--meet for the first time to intertwine strings in Nantes, France, with Benjamin Duboc recording seven diverse dialogs of imaginative style and authoritative technique.

Doc Chad pays homage to classic horror flicks with this experimental album blending collages of spoken word from the original movies, with an emphasis on Vincent Price/Hammer Horror era epics, creating a new soundtrack to accompany them through effected guitar work in a Chad/Horror/Rake mode, a freakish and fun blend of improvised and planned performance.

The full two-hour performance of Cornelius Cardew's entire 193-page legendary Treatise graphic score, performed at Iklectik in London, England on January 28, 2017 in an 11-member ensemble of some of London's most interesting improvisers including participants in Scratch Orchestra, in a double CD release with liner notes by AMM founder Eddie Prevost.

The French free improvising trio of pianist Cecile Cappozzo, double bassist Patrice Grente, and drummer Etienne Ziemniak are heard in performance at "la Maison en Bois" in Abbeville-la-Riviere in 2018, with trumpeter Jean-Luc Capozzo joining them on the title track, as they bring order to the 4 part "Chaos" through superb collective improvisation.

Pianist Pi-Hsien Chen performs both the playful and quirky sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti juxtaposed to John Cage's I Ching developed compositions, "Music of Changes", which complement each other in unexpected and sublime ways.

The Montreal free improvising, experimenting duo "Not The Music" of bassist Eric Norman & bass clarinetist Philippe Lauzier invited UK saxophonist John Butcher for concerts in Ottawa and Montreal, recording the two impressive 5-part series heard on this album--"en consequence" (consequently) and "par irruption" (by bursting), of masterful and profoundly pensive prowess.

A live concert in Quezon City from the Manila based duo of Rich Countryman on alto saxophone and Swiss drummer Christian Bucher, who are joined on one track by acoustic bassist Simon Tan and trombonist Isla Antinero.

Looking back and fondly imagining some of the locations and configuration that UK guitarist Ian Brighton played in the 70s, Brighton developed the pieces on this album, each compositions varying the personnel from life-long partners (Taylor, Wachsmann, Mattos) to musicians Brighton has performed with since his 2016 return to improvisation (Carrier, Beresford, Metcalfe).

As he delves further into electronics, Netherlands vocal improviser and experimental artists Jaap Blonk finds an ever-increasing array of approaches to modify his voice and set it into alien and astounding environments, here in 16 tracks of musique concrete, sound poetry, pulse based electronics, soundscapes, and inexplicable hybrids of the same.

Trombonist Jeb Bishop and North Carolina-based Out & Gone Collective member, violist Dan Ruccia, after touring and performing with Eugene Chadbourne, Dan Lilley, and David Menestres, found their sound so compatible that they recorded this duo album using the languages of free jazz, chamber music, and extended improvisations to create something unexpected and rare.

Remastered ed. of the '93 release of Berio's "Folk Songs" and "Chamber Music", and Edison Denissow's "La Vie en rouge" performed by the Ensemble for New Music Zurich.

Using the building site of the Paris Philharmonie as their source location and inspiration, the trio of Pascal Battus using found objects, Bertrand Gauget on saxophone, and Eric La Casa on microphones, improvise and record the background sounds, machines, and environmental influences, using those recordings to create these three fascinating compositions.

Composer Clarence Barlow, like Beethoven, builds his own labyrinths, brick by brick, and then searches for an escape by creating conceptual forms to get around the traps of time, tonality, and style.

A 1995 live concert at Romanisches Cafe in Tokyo from the South Korean and Japanese free improvising quartet of Choi Sun Bae on trumpet, Junji Hirose on tenor & soprano saxophones, Motoharu Yoshizawa on electric vertical five strings bass, and Kim Dae Hwan on percussion, in five collective improvisations including an homage to Charlie Parker.

The Architek Percussion ensemble is a Montreal quartet performing works by Canadian composers, using percussion, drums, sampling, electronics and synth in wonderfully odd ways, here with two guest performers presenting works composed and mixed by Elliot Britton.

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Mizuki Wildenhahn adds an unusual percussive instrument through dance to the multi-arts Amu quartet of Wildenhahn, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, pianist Satoko Fujii, and percussionist Takashi Itani, heard on the CD and seen on the DVD of this 2-disc set of their unorthodox and absorbing live performance at Kanagawa Prefectural Lake Sagami-ko Exchange Center in 2018.

The Ensemble fur Neue Musik Zurich plays seven pieces by Swiss composer Dieter Ammann, each made through a very slow creative process that contrasts the very lively and gestural music.

New York tenor saxophonist and composer Michael Adkins with his quartet including Paul Motian on drums in a set of 9 original compositions.

NoBusiness continues their essential 70's reissue series of renowned Japanese free improvisers, here in an LP and extended CD edition of the live duo of percussionist Sabu Toyozumi and saxophonist Kaoru Abe on alto, soprano & sopranino saxophones, the LP presenting their 1978 concert at Gaja, Hatsudai in Tokyo, the CD extended with a live set at Minor, Kichijoji the same year.

The GGRIL (Grand groupe régional d'improvisation libérée) improviser ensemble based in Quebec invited German saxophonist living in NYC, Ingrid Laubrock, to compose three works, taking the band on adventerous journeys of texture, abstraction and melody, harnessing the power of the band's unique orchestration of electric guitars, percussion, and strings.

Filled with mystery and innuendo, the duo of French pianist and keyboardist Loris Binot, performing on prepared piano, prepared Fender Rhodes, Moog & electronics, and French-based accordionist Emilie Skrijelj, also on samples & electronics, are heard in a recording at the performing arts theater at CCAM in Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy for two extended and superbly intriguing improvisations.

The New York free improvising trio of Matthew Heyner (Test, Malkuth) on bass, Matt Lavelle on trumpet and clarinet and Ryan Sawyer (Tall Firs, Stars Like Fleas) on drums in the follow-up to their 2005 Utech double CD "Embracing The Tide / Making Eye Contact With God", an impressive release of expressive technique and ritualistic drive.

Pianist Claudia Binder presents 3 concepts for solo piano - the introspective "Room for a Sound" and it's dramatic inverse, "Sound for a Room"; "Polyphony" in 3 parts using piano preparation, one part playful, one part serious, one part peculiar; and an inexplicable "It Takes Two to Tango"--in performances revealing a curious mind and tremendous skill.

Sharing common ground in improvisational language and extended techniques but approaching these materials in diverse and disparate ways, alto saxophonists Tim O'Dwyer and Georg Wissel, both using preparations on their sax and distinguished in separate stereo channels, present a singular concert of reed interactions live at the Peter Kowald Ort in Wuppertal, Germany

Drummer Quentin Conrate works in contemporary music, musical theater and experimental art, concerned with space, sound and movement; here he is caught live at Festival Becoq in La Cooperative, Montolieu, France for an album of refracted and reverberant sound using a collection of objects described as "incomplete drums", and a wall.

Live recordings at Jazzclub Moods in Zurich, Switzerland in 2013 from the trio of Christoph Irniger on tenor saxophone, Daniel Studer on double bass, and Dieter Ulrich on drums & bugle, bringing together two generations of free improvisers for seven concise and masterful conversations, lyrically inclined in captivating interplay and solos.

An immersive album of collective sound from the Portugues quintet of Ernesto Rodrigues on viola, Guilherme Rodrigues on cello, Nuno Torres on alto saxophone, Eduardo Chagas on trombone, and Carlos Santos on computer, developing rich sonic environments of great detail and intense patience, a tremendous journey that rewards the careful listener.

Two German trombonists, Matthias and Matthias Muche, extend the trombone language through four open improvisations using advanced techniques and bizarre language, each appropriately titled for phonemes, as the two players explore the strangest and most interesting sides of their instruments to the benefit of the intrepid listener.

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