Japanese steelpan player Yoshio Machida leads this pan-national pop band in their second album, blending electronics and popular forms of music referencing and using electronic and acoustic rock, funk, synthpop, and spoken word, with the majority of the band Serbian artists, and guest musicians including Tatsuhisa Yamamoto (Jim O'Rourke), Paranel, and Misha.

Swedish pianist Mattias Risberg demonstrates the passion he dedicates to vintage instruments like mellotron, Hammond organ, analog synthesizers, clavichord and pipe organs, here in a solo album of piano, with some light preparations, and the pedals of a Moog Taurus, in an inventive album of improvisations inspired by the vivid images of postage stamps.

Four fascinating compositions by Pascale Criton exploring microtonalities on instruments tuned in 1/16th tone (violin, viola, guitar) based on gestural processes developed in close collaboration with the musicians: one duo with Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker, one solo piece with Deborah Walker, and two pieces performed by Dedalus Ensemble.

An hour-long interview in the French language between French improvisers, bassist and vocalist Joelle Leandre and guiatist Noel Akchote, originally released in 2000, Leandre very engaged and at times quite animated and in good spirits, the CD partitioned into six equal sections for easy indexing.

An absorbing album of solo drum work from French drummer/percussionist Antonin Gerbal, recording in the studio and demonstrating his profound sonic and technical approaches to the drums, isolated from projects like Peeping Tom, Bertrand Denzler/ONCEIM or Zoor.

The second album from this Norwegian electric improvising power trio, using dark rhythmic grooves over which guitar, electric piano, amplified objects, no-input mixing board, and pianet emerge, creating hypnotic states that lead to exultant moments through sinuous melody, building and releasing intensity while maintaining a consistent gauzy undertone.

Goh Lee Kwang performing on no-input mixer meets Julien Ottavi on TamTam, bass drum and a computer running Puredata and Apodio 10 for an album of electronic improvisation recorded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Nantes, France, balancing aggressive and meditative sound.

Jean-Luc Guionnet creates a portrayal of Lake Annecy near his home as described through its geographical location, and heard in a series of snapshot field recording compositions that describe the environment, fauna, people and civilization that abound around it.

LA flutist Leah Paul began these works as through-composed chamber pieces, with lyrical content evolving as each song took shape, performed in a hybrid band of improvisers and chamber players with Afton Hefley singing about meditation of dreams and childhood memories.

German pianist Uwe Oberg (Lacy Pool, Uwe Oberg Quartet, Kooperative New Jazz) in a solo album performing works of Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk and his own original work, applying a diverse set of approaches rooted in jazz tradition.

The Italian improvising music unit Jealousy Party, known for their spontaneous use of self-recycling through playback devices, is joined by Berlin-based artist and composer Nicolas Wiese in this studio recording.

Dutch improviser van Heumen (N Collective, OfficeR, &c.) in a dynamic and shifting solo work of laptop electronics, noise textures, and text.

Beautiful, mysterious improvised compositions with spoken interludes, recorded live in March 2003 at the first Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques (MNM) festival.

A unique approach to solo reeds and winds from French multi-reedist Matthieu Prual, also on flute and ORLA Keyboard, maintaining lyrical and comprehensible approaches with strong technical skills in captivating and succinct statements, truly excellent work.

WPG is John Ferguson and Robert van Heumen, blending a fractured pulse with dynamic texture into an immersive and disorientating music, from subtle to invasive sound.

Electronic improvisations from Formian reed & electronics artist Fega, a member of Taxonomy with Elio Martusciello, as well as IATO and IXEM, Pangolino Orchestra, &c.

An organized sound work paying homage to German cartographer Karl Ortmann; and a piece built around the video installation "MSTM Wall" by British media artist Ian W. Coel.

A quartet of finesse and great communication led by pianist Copland, with saxophonist Greg Osby, bassist Doug Weiss and drummer Victor Lewis, performing original compositions and two well-placed standards.

Wakool is an interrogation into an expanded range of techniques and gestures from David Brown playing banjo, electroacoustic guitar, bandura, and eukolin.

Putting together two releases from Montreal guitarist and composer Tim Brady's "24 Frames" project: "Trance" (CD + DVD) and "Scatter" (2 CDs), performed solo and with his Bradyworks ensemble.

Vocalists DB Boyko and Christine Duncan turn gibberish into improvised poetry while accompanied by drummer Jean Martin who uses multi-timbered objects to create beautiful and absurd music.

"Oprachina" is made up of the words opra (opera) & china (bowed), meaning alienating, back-breaking work, coined in the early 20th century to represent an equilibrium between written passages and free improvisation.

Classical saxophonist Neil McGovern joins improvising legend Paul Dunmall to perform music based on Dunmall's book "60 Studies for Saxophone", with Matt London lending a 3rd voice for one track.

A feast for fans of the soprano saxophone as Udo Schindler and Frank Paul Schubert improvise live at the 51th SALON fur Klang + Kunst in Krailing/Munich, Germany in 2015, blending and contrasting two approaches to the instrument in fascinating ways.

Roman philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus named "Clinamen" the unpredictable (in time and space) swerve of atoms falling in the void, which aptly describes the unexpected directions taken in subtle free improvisation from this French trio, led by bassist Louis-Michel Marion, with Jacques Di Donato on clarinet, and Philippe Berger on viola.

The Swedish duo of percussionist Andreas Pollak and prepared pianist Johan Graden (Adam & Alma) in an album of references and innuendo, clandestine and furtive sounds that evoke great mystery and drama in beautifully shaped sound; evocative music that deceives to emerge from the electronic realm while in actuality coming from all acoustic sources.

A co-production between BeCoq Records and Creative Sources, the quartet of saxophonist Mathhiew Lebrun with 3 guitarists--Leo Rathier, Paul Menard, and Thomas Coquelet--use preparations, feedbacks, glass, cymbals, microswitches, and unusual sax techniques to create unusual sonic environments that ebb and flow in introspective and disquieting ways.

Live recordings at LOFT in Cologne, Germany from the trio of George Wissel on prepared saxophone, Achim Tang on doublebass, and Simon Camatta on drums & percussion, performing seven "Movements" that use prodigious technique with reserve and direction, revealing the structure of their work as the pieces build and recede in fascinating ways.

The second volume of the project heard in the previous Creative Sources album, "Suspensao", here in a 9-piece electroacoust ensemble with viola, cello, doublebass, alto sax, trombone, piano, electric guitar, computer and percussion, suspenseful lowercase music that unfolds in mysterious, beautiful and rewarding ways.

Grooves with Energy, or Sandunga Jazz Fusion as guitarist and leader Allen Weber describes his mix of jazz rock fusion infused with Latin, Carribeo, Funk, Blues, R & B and Rock.

Deconstructed sounds from Ralf Wehowsky (RLW) on electronics & Johannes Frisch on double bass, citing Ornette Coleman's "Free Jazz" album as an (abstract?) influence, using noise, glitch, acoustics and jump-cut compositional styles that surprise but won't make you want to dance.

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 surreal and sophisticated work with a 9 piece electroacoustic ensemble composed by sampling and computer artist Roberto Fega, with audio interludes and vocal aberrations, plus text by Jennifer Scappettone.

Previously played Squidco store copy, used for cataloging and samples, in excellent condition.

"The album is a studio version of a chamber opera prepared by Joanna Halszka Sokolowska at Opera// REMIX at Komuna// Warszawa. The...

Solo bass from acoustic and electroacoustic artist JC Jones, a distillation of his language in free improvised music incorporating electronic sound and noise.

Bassist J.C. Jones brings together science & music, enabling an evocative window into the illness MS by making the vibrations of myelin protein audible, over which Jones, Yoni Silver, Harold Rubin, Airel Shibolet, &c. improvise.

Live recordings of JC Jones in duo settings, 14 different collaborations including Ned Rothenberg, Victoria Hanna, Harold Rubin, Josef Sprinzak, Nori Jacoby, &c.

"Lopez' new solo album, Drums Solo II: Swinging with Doors, shows the drummer in an entirely different scenario. To put it bluntly, he's improvising to a door. Well, many doors - kitchen doors, station doors, school doors, even sauna do...

"The discography of Carolyn Hume and Paul May on Leo Records continues to grow. On their fourth CD for Leo Records they continue to explore their haunting, atmospheric pieces occasionally augmented by the voice of Sonja Galsworthy, guit...

"It is probably not easy to be the son of Pino Minafra and try to find your musical identity. But there are advantages too: from early childhood Livio was hanging out with great musicians such as Sergey Kuryokhin, the whole of Italian I...

"Thierry Maucci has a fat, rich sound on tenor and baritone sax, with a tone a bit more piercing and urgent on the alto. The listener gets a chance to study all of his tricks on this 50-minute solo album. Liaison Acoustique was recorded...

"The Invisible Story" was produced over a four year period, and completed just last ear: This work deals with the ideas of Bela Hamvas (1897-1968), a Hungarian literary figure whose fate was literally sealed by his country's history. In...

"TRIO L.T.D. music augmented by the voice and trombone of Bertl Muetter is built on the mutual understanding of improvisation. However, the listeners are also involved in their endless process of musical development. Recorded live durin...

"Fredrik Soegaard successfully applies modern technology to sound to create new methods of interactive composing. He calls his trio the Soegaard Ensemble, an apt description as it bears Soegaard's stamp throughout and also gives the imp...

"You better strap in for this one: it's a relentlessly post-modern excursion into the possibilities of noise, of static, of crossed expectations. Tenor saxophonist Bertrand Denzler is on hand, and he is a fine musician with a raw intens...

Composer, pianist and multi-instrumentals Joana Sa gives voice to texts by Goncalo M. Tavares as read by Rosinda Costa, where the text organizes the thoughts that filter the multiple, disorderly, eccentric, voluble mind described in Tavares' work.

Silber Records label owner Brian John Mitchell's Remora persona, assisted by Brian Lee McKenzie (Electric Bird Noise) in post-apocalyptic folk songs, drones, and electronic music.

"In the relationship of grace to the precarious / in the moment unknown, a space for an event of the body, the spirit / the precipitate of living urges .. Of forces in the timing of nature - in a body and out of the time/space of a sexu...

"Novo Navigatio (New Journey) is the Abstractions' third and final release of innovative and cutting sonic landscapes. This is "Vision music" that consists of a colorful orchestration of vocals, saxophones, guitars, percussion, strings,...

"Heading north to Liverpool, we find the duo of Graculus making some very gracious and enjoyable improvised music. The group is Richard Harding on classical guitar and Phil Hargreaves on flute and soprano sax, and their approach is as s...

The debut studio recordings from Calgary, Canada's Mark Fleischhaker and Scott Munro, electronically manipulated vocals with a loose sense of the word.

Lyrical and sophisticated improvisations performed on just a ukulele and a suitcase from these Toronto musicians playing the compositions of lap steel player Myk Freedman

Solo improvisations on the Turkish Clarinet from Claudio Parodi, an Italian classically trained pianist who also works with self-built/self-modified electronics, non-western reeds, and selected percussions.

A series of solos and duets between Kalimba player Rainer Wiens and an impressive set of improvisers including Jean Derome, Malcolm Goldstein, Frank Lozano, &c.

"The name Paul Winstanley vaguely rang a bell somewhere (maybe I was confused by Kiss' Paul Stanley), but this bass player is/was part of Plains, a large group of improvisers from New Zealand of whom we reviewed some releases before. He...

"The Bug Radio Series on CJSW ran from April to July of 2007. Its main function was to keep the Bug Incision activities alive after the add of the first live concert series at the end of 2006."-Bug Incision

"Anita Dechellis turns her soprano voice into an instrument on this ethereal recording that features the muted acoustic guitar atonality of Ernesto Diaz-Infante, electric guitar drone from Chris Forsyth, stark piano tracings from Dan De...

Vancouver guitarist Tony Wilson in his 1st solo release recorded in an island cabin, showing his influences from Leadbelly, Fahey, Coltrane, and Ribot.

A CD curated by Ben Watson on retiring (disgusted) from music journalism in 2005, presenting his private (though unassailable) canon of undiscovered genuises - as well as a sketch of what music listening could be if niche-marketed identity-...

Rinus van Alebeek plays a CD copy of the late composer Luc Ferrari's "Cycles Des Souvenirs" in Luc Ferrari's house, while his widow Brunhild Ferrari reads the liner notes and Van Alebeek makes recording inside the house and its surroundings.

"Loachfillet dwells on the lake bed of a lifelong musical vision where analogue synth, beaten bass, tape loops and aging electronics pour forth sound too crushingly deep to escape. From a funneling eddy at the start of track one, down y...

"Utilizing a diverse range of instrumentation, both electronic and acoustic, Prosa is as still as it is dynamic. Its formation (a transcontinental process, through the post) was an exercise of patience and concerted application alike. T...

"The duet of Ernesto Rodrigues and Jorge Valente was once named Orquestra Vermelha (the Portuguese name for Red Orchestra). The reasons for this choice - let it be remembered that it was thus the espionage network set up by the Soviet s...