Virtuoso UK bassist Ashley John Long presents a startling array of approaches and techniques on the double bass over 11 improvisations, from concise shorter presentations to expansive displays of skill, excitement or introspection, all with an ear to captivating his listener.

Referencing Wayne Shorter ("Footprints") and the lyrically free playing of Shorter's 60s influences, this 3rd album led by tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and trumpeter Dave Douglas, with the powerful support of pianist Lawrence Fields, bassist Linda May Han Oh, and drummer Joey Baron, was recorded following a week at New York's Village Vanguard in January 2020.

Pianist and accordionist Joao Lucas' music for Andresa Soares' choreography "It was a very abstract thing", structured acoustic improvisation with a slight electronic edge.

A great example of British collective free jazz captured live at Iklectic in London in 2019 for two extended and wide-ranging performances--"Dial Tone I" & II--from the quartet of Sue Lynch (Remote Viewers, The Horse Improvised Music Club), Polish trumpeter based in London Dawid Frydryk, drummer Dave Fowler (Maggie Nichols) and the ever-active John Edwards on bass.

Phil Maguire (Verz label) exchanges abstract electronics from a variety of lo-fi devices with glitch and aberrant guitarist James L. Malone, a London improviser who has worked with Eddie Prevost, Phil Durrant, Steve Beresford and Adam Bohman, as the two trade strange sonic disruptions, avoiding pandemonium, instead using noise in pointed discourse.

Performed as part of the AMPLIFY 2011 festival at The Stone in NYC, the duo of trombonist Radu Malfatti and electronic/visual artist Taku Unami presented this long, minimal and dramatic soundwork in a pitch-black room lit only by Unami's visuals.

Pianist and composer Brian Marsella leads an all-star octet including Cyro Baptista, Mark Feldman, Jon Irabagon performing Marsella's lyrical and upbeat compositions inspired by classical, jazz, and folkloric Brazilian music and influenced by composers from Ernesto Nazareth, Heitor Villa-Lobos and Pixinguinha to Baden Powell and Egberto Gismonti; irrepressible!

Blending melodic strength with post-bop intensity, Boston area improvisers Jorrit Dijkstra on alto sax, lyricon & analog synth, Pandelis Karayorgis on piano, Nate McBride on bass and Curt Newton on drums present 10 exuberant and unique modern jazz compositions.

Authoritative and playful free improvisation in the European Free Jazz style, this 1978 album on Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink's Instant Composers Pool (ICP) label, included the pianist and drummer along with Peter Brotzmann, Peter Bennink and Evan Paker on sax, Paul Rutherford on trombone, and Derek Bailey on guitar, in a much-need reissue of this seminal album.

The complete set from the live performance of Neil Metcalfe (flute), Guillaume Viltard (double bass) and Daniel Thompson (guitars), performing in the extraordinary space of St Leopards Shoreditch Church in Hackney, London.

Combining concerts from a number of festivals and venues between 2009 & 2017, this album presents the best of the collaboration between London free improvising vocalist Phil Minton and Austrian turntablist and experimenter Dieb13, each of them masterfully unleashed in overwhelmingly creative, outlandish, sometimes frightening/sometimes uproarious, truly unique music.

Continuing her series of large works inspired by the dystopic writings of Octavia E. Butler, composer and flutist Nicole Mitchell assembles Chicago improvisers including cellist Tomeka Reid, percussionist Avreeayl Ra, trumpeter Ben LaMar Gay and interdisciplinary artist Lisa E. Harris to explore facets of Butler's Parable of the Sower.

"Distant Radio Transmission" was originally recorded as an improvisation by Roscoe Mitchell, Craig Taborn, and Kikanju Baku in 2013, then transcribed by Stephen P. Harvey in 2016, extended for strings by John Ivers in 2017, and then fully orchestrated by Roscoe Mitchell himself in 2017; the album also includes "Noonah Trio", "Cutouts for Woodwind Quintet" and "8/8/88".

A state-of-the-art duo recording from two remarkable improvisers bridging New York and Spain - guitarist Joe Morris and pianist Agusti Fernandez - performing "Ambrosia" in 6 parts.

The first release from the duo of Katsura Mouri and Tim Olive was recorded near Kyoto on a sweltering summer day in 2010, heard in these gritty and rich ea-improv pieces from Tim Olive on pickups and metals, and Mouri on turntables.

The first meeting for the trio of Tuvan free improvising vocalist & throat singer Sainkho Namtchylak, saxophonist Ned Rothenberg and turntablist Dieb13, captured in performance at Music Unlimited 33, at Alter Schlachthof Wels, Austria in 2019 for 2 improvisations — the 40 minute "Shave and a Haircut" and the 11 minute "Two Bits" — in incredibly creative and formidable music.

A long, lovely and flowing improvisation from the Necks in a 54 minute live recording recorded in Townsville, Northern Queensland in February, 2007.

A recording of two London based improvisers of different generations communing in the resonant surroundings of the 100 Years Gallery, with drummer Noble creating glittering bell and gong like tones over which guitar Thompson hangs fractured harmonics and strange bending chords.

Skull Defekts member and a part of Ocean Of Silver And Blood, Joachim Nordwal is captured in a 2008 concert in Oslo for this 17 minute lo-fi set of textured sound work, a grainy drone of howling sound.

The debut release of the duo of Joachim Nordwall on modular synth and Mark Wastell on tam tam performing two tonal drones that blends rich cymbal sonics entwined with dark, slowly evolving synthetics.

Recording in Brooklyn in 2014, this collaboration between Olive and Ben Owen presents four tracks of electronic improvisation using shortwave radio, oscillators, paper, contact microphones and magnetic pickups, creating a mysterious and well-paced album of sound experimentation.

The Polish trio OWL of Marcin Halat on violin, Maciej Garbowski on double bass, and Krzysztof Gradziuk on drums invited German pianist Pablo Held for a concert at Loft in Cologne, 2019, to perform three lyrical and dynamic compositions from violinist Halat, alongside a 6-part "IMPRO" collective improvisation, balancing free and lyrical approches to superb modern jazz.

The electroacoustic improvising quartet of guitarist Peter Alexius, drummer Joe Herteinstein, Joker Nies on raw electronics, and Sebastian Grammss on spacebass, in 9 tracks that run the gamut from groove-based intensity to open dialog using unusual voices.

Commissioned by choreographer Jennifer Monson, the collaboration of Downtown NY electric harpist and sound artist Zeena Parkins and Chicago sound artist Jeff Kolar explore the intersection of acoustic phenonema against electronic, synthetic & radio sounds, inspired by the timing of natural phenomena like ocean currents and daylight emergence; fascinating.

The 6th and final volume of tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman's ambitious series exploring modern free improvisation in a variety of trio setting with differing players and configurations, here with Joe Morris on bass and Gerald Cleaver on drums in an extended and masterful 2-part recording that runs the gamut of lyrical and burning free jazz.

Three works from Italian composer and pianist Federico Pozzer in his "breathing" series, compositions where the musicians follow the concept of inhaling, exhaling, and pausing, set against certain fixed actions or interactions as they devise their own musical actions, the goal to overcome both the players' freedom in decision-making and strictness in the score.

The long collaboration between saxophonist Mike Pride and drummer/percussionist Jonathan Moritz is concentrated in these superb studio recording, bring great clarity to the far-ranging and detailed interactions both bring to their improvisations through unusual technique, an expansive arsenal of percussive devices, and wonderfully inventive attitudes.

A book and 2 CDs celebrating the 25th anniversary of this unusual and fascinating musical instrument designed and built by Hal Rammel, an artist's palette outfitted with a contact mic and vertically-mounted rods, played with a variety of uniquely designed bows and mallets.

Franz Hautzinger formed the orchestra in 1995 as an ensemble for experimental music, developing into an advanced improvising band that incorporates a shifting and diverse set of styles, heard here at Klangspuren Festival in 2019 with Hautzinger on trumpet, Christian Fennesz on guitar & laptop, Otomo Yoshihide on guitar & turntables, Luc Ex on bass, and Tony Buck on drums.

With three percussionists--JC Maillard, Franco Pinna, and Thierry Aprino--Maillard also playing bass & stringed instruments, plus vocalist and frequent Zorn collaborator Sofia Rei, Zorn's series "The Book Beri'ah" presenting the final 92 compositions in his Masada series initiates with this compellingly beautiful and propulsive album of song.

Since 1997 drummer Tim Daisy and saxophonist Dave Rempis have worked together as part of the vital Chicago improvising scene, heard here in these superb duo sessions of great technical, musical, and inventive skills.

13 years playing together and releasing this, their 8th album, the Chicago quartet of Dave Rempis on sax, Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten on electric bass, Frank Rosaly on drums, and Tim Daisy on drums, are captured live at Elastic Arts, in Chicago for three awe-inspiring collective improvisations of great energy, resolution, and focus.

Chicago saxophonist Dave Rempis approached the idea of his first solo album under the shadow of the greats before him, in 2017 choosing to journey across the country on a solo tour, performing 31 concerts of which these 6 recordings represent the best reflection of his unique solo vocabulary on the instrument and his enthusiasm for a wealth of musical styles.

Inspired by Larry Ochs' Rova and Darren Johnston's collaborations with Rempis, this free-improvising trio began life in 2011, developing an "invisible architecture" that guides their playing, as heard in these seven superb recordings.

With long-time Chicago partners saxophonist Dave Rempis and drummer Frank Rosaly, plus Dutch guitarist and electric bassist Jasper Stadhouders (Cactus Truck, Made to Break), this new trio plays assertive and energetic free jazz that shreds melodic riffs and raw power, decelerating for contemplative moments, as heard in two large improvisations named by digital sequences.

In the spring of 2015 multi-reedist and wind player Perry Robinson travelled to Southern California for a series of concerts, recording this duo with Italian percussionist living on the US West Coast Andrea Centazzo, a free and open session with Robison on clarinet, micro ocarina & bird calls, and Centazzo also using a MalletKat & sampling.

Pianist Florian Ross, a member of Vancouver Jazz Orchestra, the BMI Jazz Orchestra, or the Metropole Orkest, in his first solo album, a virtuouso album of variety and charm.

Celebrating 40 years as a performing ensemble, the West Coast saxophone quartet ROVA of Bruce Ackley on soprano saxophone, Steve Adams on alto & sopranino saxophones, Jon Raskin on baritone saxophone, and Larry Ochs on tenor saxophone, reworked compositions from all members transversing their past 34 years, in an absolutely impressive and diverse album.

Guitarist Vitor Rua (GNR, Telectu) recorded the 15 pieces of this 2-CD set first as a series of overdubbed solo improvisations, using his virtuosic skills to create intriguing and compelling works, which he orchestrated and recorded with the quintet of Hernani Faustino on bass, Luis San Payo on drums, Manuel Guimaraes on organ, Nuno Reis on trumpet, and Paulo Galao on clarinets.

Ry-om is a london-based duo creating improvised experimental electronic music, noise and acoustic soundscapes using laptops, guitars, feedback loops, synths, instrumental samples and vocals.

Two extended improvisations from pianist Sten Sandell's trio with bassist Johan Berthling and drummer Paal Nillsen-Love, recorded live in Tokyo in 2008.

Recording in Kobe, Japan in 2014, the duo of Jin Sangtae, organizer of Seoul's long-running dotolim concert series and who gainfully employs cast-off computer hard drives as sound sources, and Tim Olive, who uses electro-magnetic pickups to give voice to consumer/post-consumer objects, for three tracks of recycled and unorthodox sound.

Working in an AMM vein, Sonax uses a mixture of self-made instruments, sound sculpture and live electronics to create otherworldly improvisation environments.

Christoph Schiller's first solo work for spinet, amplified objects and piano, using a simple but brilliant structure which combines improvised pieces in a unique chain-like pattern of repetition and development.

An extended improvisation between spinet player Christoph Schiller and Boston-based composer/violinist Morgan Evans-Weiler, recorded in Schiller's workshop in Basel during Evans-Weiler's tour of Europe, a slowly moving exploration of pitch, timbre and texture executed with intensive concentration and utterly impressive control.

Pianist von Schlippenbach and drummer Eddie Prevost on an album of two solo works each, and then together for a piece inspired by Thelonius Monk.

Seeded Plain is the duo of Bryan Day and Jay Kreimer, who create homemade instruments and use them to create far-ranging improvisations with a unique set of timbres and percussive elements.

Using the traditional piano-bass-drums lineup, NY pianist Matthew Shipp's trio with Michael Bisio on bass and Newman Taylor Baker on drums balance their work between beautiful lyrical interplay of melodic counterpoint and rhythmic undertow and exploratory work accentuating unique eccentricities from all three players, a great next motion from this authoritative trio.

The title referencing the discipline and often mathematical basis behind New York pianist Matthew Shipp's work, balanced by fascinating abstractions and a curious mind that drives Shipp's remarkable journeys in solo improvisation, these 11 pieces draw together fundamental elements of the jazz idiom and transform them into something intelligently complex and uniquely Shipp.

The trio of drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, electronic and turntable artist Lasse Marhaug and vocalist/electronic artist Maja Solveig Kjestrup Ratkje met at Cafe Mono during the Oslo Jazz Festival to perform these excellent and disturbing recordings.

UK sax and wind player James Arben and cellist Shirley Smart explore the possibilities of chamber-oriented free improvisation through a series of dialogues of harmonic, rhythmic and timbral tension and resolution, created from bold experimental playing techniques and melodic discourse that draws on influences from jazz to Middle Eastern, folk and contemporary music.

An incredible double CD from trumpeter Leo Smith's Organic with Michael Gregory, Pheeroan AkLaff, Angelica Sanchez, Skuli Sverrisson, Brandon Ross, &c &c... incredible electric and acoustic jazz from the legendary improviser and innovator!

French vocalist Claudia Solal provides the lyrics--sung-spoken narratives, prose and poetic forms--performed with pianist Benoit Delbecq, who uses internal preparations and a variety of creative approaches to keys, both intricate and melodic, setting the fascinating and insightful stories that Solal spiels; a wonderful union of instrument and word.

Spectral, since 2012 the working horn trio of Dave Rempis on alto & baritone sax, Darren Johnston on trumpet, and Larry Ochs on sopranino & tenor sax, split their time between San Francisco and Chicago, in their 3rd album of spontaneous, complex free improv, here using the setting of Bunker A-168 in Mare Island Shoreline Heritage Preserve, CA, to influence their performance.

Concert and studio recordings of peace music organised by John Stevens for himself and Trevor Watts with numerous workshop musicians and audience people on saxophones, percussion and voices mostly contributing a flexible drone.

The fourth release from Chicago bass clarinetist Jason Stein's Locksmith Isidore, a trio with Jason Roebke on bass and New York drummer Mike Pride, playing modern creative jazz with a twisted melodic sense through Stein's original compositions, alongside one collective comoposition and John Coltrane's "26-2", a great example of 21st century jazz.

A diverse and engrossing solo album from NY-based, global travelling trombonist Steve Swell, showing vast creative and technical skills through unusual techniques that balance with inventive and lyrical approaches to the horn, a tour-de-force of modern playing.

An improvisation for two laptop computers performed by Tim Blechmann and Klaus Filip, recorded live in Vienna at "neue musik in st ruprecht", 2010, contrasting minimal tones with massive bass rumble and frothing frequencies.

A large band project from UK composer, arranger and conductor Giles Thornton, directing 29 musicians through original works and reinterpretations of ballads like Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You", in a blend of acoustic and electronic musicians that avoids overt fusion overtones while keeping the music melodic with the occasional exotica flair.

The Swedish trio of Jonas Kullhammar on sax, Torbjorn Zetterberg on bass and Daniel Fredriksson drums live at Glenn Miller Cafe in 2007 in a mix of originals and standards.

Distilling their larger group work on albums "Kumuska" and "Marmara Sea" to the duo of creative New York bass clarinetist & guitarist Elliott Sharp, and Bosporus vocalist Saadet Turkoz, whose free improvisation is influenced by European, Indian, Asian, jazz & blues forms, in an album of 9 songs about the familiar focused through a world view.

Twins of El Dorado is NY trumpeter Joe Moffett (Ad Faunum, Inzinzac) in a duo with jazz vocalist Kristin Slipp (Art Bears Songbook) performing original work and a text setting by composer Wes Matthews.

Originally developed for the soundtrack to Sean Martin and Louise Milnes 2011 documentary, "A Boat Retold", vocalist Maggie Nichols and pianist Peter Urpeth revisited the material for album release, creating this wonderful pair of extemporaneous, otherworldly narratives.

Drummer/percussionist and electronic artist Weasel Walter's solo album presents 99 tracks that represent 4 large movements of "detailed abstract madness", titled "Curse Against Humanity", "Casting Destruction", "Ode To The Death Of Enemies", and "Cursed in Eternity", each a vicious and intensely captivating set of elusive movement in accord and discord; fascinating.

The debut album from the trio of Dave Rempis (sax), Jason Adasiewicz (vibraphone) and Nate McBride (bass) is a rich melodic and harmonic release with tracks that vary from sparse to zestful.

Manuel Perovic arranges the story of Narcissus and Echo, as told by Ovid for saxophonist Jurg Wickihalder and a theatrical band including Michael Jaeger, Damian Zangger, Chris Wiesendanger, &c.

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 two parts of "Spuren" from Swiss percussionist Christian Wolfarth cover each side in an album of concentrative timbre and strategy, evoking continuous sounds that are diverted into unexpected avenues, drawing the listener into trance-like states with rich resonance, tone, and malleable rhythms, then surprising with unforseen audio twists.

The free improvising quartet of Nate Wooley (trumpet), Dave Rempis (sax), Pascal Niggenkemper (bass), and Chris Corsano (drums), bridging ridiculously great technical skills with creative curiosity and forward thinking concepts for superb results.

Former Sub Pop noise recording artist, guitarist Yonkers (Microminiature Love) in 11 tracks of ferocious and fierce effected electric guitar work.

Dutch flautist and electronic artist Jos Zwaanenburg in a release that updates and reinvents the technology for works written by British composers for Zwaanenburg over the last 20 years.

Inspired by the music of 70's Miles Davis electric work, composer and saxophonist Martin Archer presents 15 compositions performed in two parallel sessions over two CDs, the first in a septet that includes Corey Mwamba, Pat Thomas and Dave Sturt, and the second an extended ensemble with brass and wind sections, each bringing distinctive life to these inspired compositions.

The longstanding collaboration of cornetist Bobby Bradford and reedist Frode Gjerstad (together since '86) with bassist Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten on bass and Frank Rosaly on drums, recording at Philadelphia Art Alliance in 2014, a powerful lineup of modern free players.

Recorded in concert at The Network Theatre, Waterloo in London, 2012, the trio of Tom Chant on saxophone, John Edwards on bass and Eddie Prevost on drums present a tour de force of modern free jazz with great technical and conversational power.

Part of a series of 100 portraits in sound iniated by Anne James Chaton, a journey into the texts and columns of newspapaper and radio broadcasts of a single journalist.