"Shifa", or "Healing", is the London-based trio of saxophonist Rachel Musson, pianist Pat Thomas, and drummer Mark Sanders, here in a live concert at Cafe Oto in 2018 of two collective improvisations of arching sax lines, rolling and potent drumming, powerful block chords and intricate lines, from dark to joyful moments, an intoxicating tonic for the ears.

Created out of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and drummer/percussionist Moe Staiano's Mute Socialite, this 7-piece improvising rock band turns rock on it's side in mostly instrumental, energetically complex and twisted rock pieces with acerbic social narrative, the band employing three drummers, bass & two guitars, piano and trumpet from Darren Johnston.

The 2nd release from the trio of Chicago cornetist Josh Berman, UK drummer/percussionist Paul Lytton and Chicago bassist Jason Roebke, featuring material recorded during the trio's April 2018 European tour, in two extended side-long improvisations from Padova, Italy and Trondheim, Norway, in sets of profound technique and creative prowess; exceptional.

Recorded live at the end of the first European tour of 2015 at the Bimhuis club in Amsterdam, this limited EP shows Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love's Large Unit in an extended and multi-sectioned piece that evolves in stages, ultimately demonstrating the tight and dynamic interplay of the band and its varied approaches to sound and intense modern jazz.

Drawn from 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland alongside their American variants, anthologised by Francis James Child during the second half of the nineteenth century, are here sung by Ed Pettersen in the fascinating intersection of traditional lyrics and experimental interpretations of melodies, performed by the 11-piece London Experimental Ensemble.

In November 2018, the groove-oriented Turkish electric improvising quartet Konstrukt of saxophonist & electronic artist Korhan Futaci, guitarist Umut Caglar, double bassist Apostolos Sideris, and drummer Berkan Tilavel, met with Chicago multi-reedist Ken Vandermark in Instanbul, recording these improvisation, a mix of muscular playing and psychedelic interaction.

The second collaboration between the American avant-metal rock trio Sumac of guitarist Aaron Turner, drummer Nick Yacyshyn and bassist Brian Cook and Japanese legendary guitarist and vocalist Keiji Haino finds the quartet settling down from their first blast of an album, here slowly building their heavy feedback-drenched, ponderous and epic music.

The third album from this international trio of powerful improvisers--Norwegian drummer/percussionist Paal Nilssen-Love, Chicago bassist Kent Kessler, and Chicago/NY saxophonist Mars William-- in four odysseys that take the listener from introspective playing to out and out blowing, using technique to serve their incredible dialog.

Legendary New York trumpeter Ted Daniel, whose skills were honed in the 70s Loft Scene, in his 4th Duology album with the trio of Michael Marcus on clarinets and Henry Grimes on bass and violin, the leader also performing on French hunting horn, an album of varied mood and intensity that sits firmly in the free jazz legacy of daring harmonies and melodies.

Recorded live at IKLECTIK, in London, 2017, the trio of Alan Wilkinson on alto and baritone saxophones and bass clarinet and the rhythm team of John Edwards on double bass, and Steve Noble on drums, perform a steaming and cathartic free jazz informed by decades of experience and a fierce energy and determination that only masterful players like these can create.

Tenor saxophonist Sam Hillmer (The Diamond Terrifier) takes NYC's Zs into a new direction as a trio with guitarist Patrick Higgins and percussionist Greg Fox, presenting the two part "Grain", a massive work of reorganized sound.

Turning to one third of his more familiar Red Trio setting, percussionist/drummer Gabriel Ferrandini enlists bassist Hernani Faustino and tenor saxophonist Pedro Sousa (Sousa/Berthling/Ferrandini, PeterGabriel Duo) to perform 9 Ferrandini compositions named after streets in Lisbon leading from Ferrandini's house to his studio and then to ZDB.

A deluxe 2 album release: "Glassware" on CD was composed by Swiss saxophonist Christoph Gallio for a commission by the Art Council Of The Canton Aargau, performed with Raphael Loher (piano), Ernst Thoma (synth), Dominique Girod (bass), and Nicolas Stocker (drums); then reworked into something creatively experimental in the 2 LP "As If You Were Here"; engaging and spellbinding!

Saxophonist and composer Crowmeat Bob's ensemble, Judge Schreber's Avian Choir, is a project name he's used to present his large ensemble pieces involving composition, improvisation, and conduction, here in a conducted collaboration with 15 bowed string players, a heavy metal rhythm section and Bob's own overdubs on reeds and guitar.

Recorded during the same tour as their Aerophonic album "Strandwal", the quartet of Nate Wooley on trumpet, Dave Rempis on saxophone, Pascal Niggenkemper on bass, and Chris Corsano on drums are heard live at Het Bos in Antwerp, Belgium for 2 side-long, cutting-edge improvisations of incredible technique, creative drive, and impressive inventiveness.

The project of baritone saxophonist Hanne De Backer, originally a duo and extended to a quartet for this second album, with fellow baritone saxophonist Marc De Maeseneer, electric and experimental bassist Raphael Malfliet, and vocalist Agnes Hvizdalek, recording at the 2018 Summer Bummer Festival in Belgium, and at Rabbit Field Studio in That should be Hoboken, Antwerp.

Grown from a sextet to this 9-tette, cornetist/composer Taylor Ho Bynum's ensemble brings together some of the finest improvisers from the Boston and New York scenes for compositions that merge orchestration and allow flexibility in interpretation, as heard in these 7 lyrical pieces, the last 3 turning the first 3 on their heads in reworked, expanded versions.

Derek Bailey's Company Week between June 29th and July 3rd in 1982 brought together a superb set of free and open-minded improvisers--including Keith Tippets, Phillip Waschmann, George Lewis, Julie Tippets, Fred Frith, &c--performing "Epiphany" (sides A & B) as a continuous work for all musicians, and "Epiphanies" (sides C & D), shorter pieces of smaller groupings.

To mark the 90th anniversary of his birth, Transversales Disques is reissuing electraoustic composer and pioneer Luc Ferrari's 1989 work "Photophonie", along with "Il etait une fois" (1973), "Trans-Voices" (1992), and "Leica" (1977), in a great overview of his work as co-founder of the GRM and with French Radio's Groupe de Musique Concrete.

Merging the US band Low of Alan Sparhawk (guitar, voice), Mimi Parker (voice, drums), Zak Sally (bass) and Ed Coxon (violin, viola) with Ashley Wales of the UK band Spring Heel Jack, in an EP of lush slow moving and beautiful songs, structurally interesting pieces of beautiful abstraction; unavailable for two decades and lovingly reissued now on the Treader imprint.

This active quartet project brings together two Chicago players--drummer Tim Daisy and reedist Vandermark--with two European players--Christof Kurzmann on pooll & electronics, and Jasper Stadhouders on bass--in their 9th album, recording in the studio in Austria for an innovative album blurring the lines between fierce free jazz and inventive experimental ea-improv.

An impressive lineup of legendary players in this much-need reissue of guitarist Derek Bailey's 1976 Music Improvisation Company album 1968-1971", exploring innovative free and electroacoustic improvisation in these 1969 & 1970 recordings with Evan Parker on soprano saxophone & amplified auto harp, Hugh Davies on live electronics & organ, and Jamie Muir on percussion.

Daphne Oram & Vera Gray's "Listen Move & Dance" series of BBC programs were devised as a radical new technique to help British schoolchildren learn how to dance, Gray's sections arranging short adaptations of classical pieces by Bartok, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, contrasted with Oram's electronic section, adding a sci-fi/Dr. Who element for the more imaginative children...

A beautiful solo set of 12 improvisations, Michael Attias performing on alto sax with his left hand and piano with his right, captured in the natural reverberation of La Maison en Bois in Abeville-La-Riviere, France; surprisingly his 1st solo album, developed over 12 years yet played in under an hour with no retakes, a wonderful nuanced reflection in tone, melody & color.

A beautifully hypnotic album of saxophone, accompanied by Pan-Ney, Shruti Box and Organ, recorded in overdubs by composer/wind player Werner Durand in this 2nd chapter of his trilogy focused on the Pan-Ney, a self-built instrument for repetitive foundations, as Durand draws on elements of nature, mythology, dance, religion, literature and folklore.

Toronto-area saxophonist Colin Fisher, best known for his group I Have Eaten The City, with his collective quartet of NY players Daniel Carter on tenor, alto & soprano saxophones + clarinet & flute, Brandon Lopez on upright bass, and Marc Edwards on drums & percussion, for three extended and exploratory improvisations of exemplary creative insight.

Recording in Toronto, the core trio of drummer Nick Fraser, saxophonist Tony Malaby and pianist Kris Davis are joined on four tracks by tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and trumpeter Lina Allemano, in an album of composed and collective improvisation, merging Toronto, NY and European influences in an accomplished album of diverse approaches and orchestrations.

Dark and demanding improvisation, each side of this album an extended foray into dark and dangerous explorations from the Los Angeles trio of Peter Kolovos on guitar, Patrick Shiroishi on saxophone, and Noel Meek on electronics and tapes, Shiroishi's sweeping tones matching the electronics and effected guitar in a glorious nightmare of darkly imaginative sound.

An extended and rich confluence of strings from R Keenan Lawler and John Krausbauer, using resonator guitar and banjo, sustained tones that intertwine in a beautiful and optimistic drone, minimalistic yet drenched in a profusion of harmonic detail; a beautiful and elusive dream mixing between an Indian raga and an alien electronic environment.

Recorded in the mid-90s, Livebatts! was a project of John White (Cornelius Cardew, Scratch Orchestra) developed to exploit "toy" keyboards of the 80s--cheap battery-driven instruments that hold tremendous potential for "serious" music-making--used here in a playful quartet with vocalist MJ Coldiron, Andrea Rocca (guitar & samples) and Nancy Ruffer (electrified flute).

An excellent first meeting of two guitarists recording on a February afternoon and released in the sequence recorded with no edits or changes, from Jim McAuley on guitar and Scot Ray on lap steel slide guitar with effects, an innately lyrical blending of styles masking the strong technical skills and long histories of these two superlative players.

Quietly lurking as it prepares to attack, this Kobra is the free improvising quaret of Aurora Nealand on accordion, alto saxophone, voice & objects, Steve Marquette on acoustic & electric guitars, Anton Hatwich on bass, and Paul Thibodeaux on drums, captured live at Chicago's Hungry Brain during the Instigation Festival for a mysterious 2-part "New Omens" and some "Telly Attire".

'Spilla' means 'to play' in the language of Neapolitan musicians, and playing here are NY guitarist and composer Elliott Sharp and Italian guitarist Sergio Sorrentino, presenting world premier recordings of 4 works recorded live in Vercelli, Italy: two improvisations and two graphic scores performed on electric guitar with incredible technique and passion.

Stochastic music for percussion and synthesizers from New York avant conceptualist and keyboardist Charlemagne Palestine, here on piano & electronics, with the Italian duo Trrma' of Giovanni Todisco on percussion and Guiseppe Candiano on synth, in two side-long works of irregular rhythm, complexity and dissonance that build and recede in a suspenseful journey.

Using toys and handmade instruments alongside guitar, bass, synths, plundered recordings and electronics, the French Toys'R'Noise trio are a live performing group that borrows from electro-beat rock forms with overtones of IDM/ambient forms, building extended sections and then amusing with quick-witted sections that bridge a clear love of the music.

A very odd album of experimental rock and mutilated folk forms that they refer to as "A sort of traditional music from a later country in a less faraway time", from French percussionist Bertrand Fraysse with vocalist Miha, using repetition and simple forms that build to strangely dense electronic environments, with a clear DIY and peculiar attitude; great fun!

Italian sound artist Mauro Diciocia presents the second installment in a trilogy of related recordings, informally named "Le Musiche", using field recordings from a variety of settings mostly around Salento in southern Italy, organizing his recordings to create auditory sketches in sound, telling abstract yet compelling stories that envelop the listener.

Derek Bailey's Company exploring free improvisation through a shifting and impressive lineup of performers, here in previously unreleased recordings with musicians including Derek Bailey, Tristan Honsinger, Christine Jeffrey, Toshinori Kondo, Charlie Morrow, David Toop, Maarten Altena, Georgie Born, Lindsay Cooper, Steve Lacy, Radu Malfatti and Jamie Muir.

Referencing the deceptively simple and memorable melodies of pianist Paul Bley, the trio of Pat Thomas on piano, Dominic Lash on double bass, and Tony Orrell on drums & percussion pay homage to the late pianist through his own work, plus compositions from Cara Bley, Ornette Coleman, Duke Ellington, and one collective improvisation; a sensitive and lyrical modern jazz album.

The NY electronics duo exclusiveOr (Sam Pluta and Jeff Synder) join forces with the International Contemporary Ensemble and Architeuthis Walks on Land (Katherine Young and Amy Cimini) for this tour-de-force ensemble work, combining composed forms, electro-acoustic improvisation, noise, and lush harmonies, in a fascinatingly detailed album of creative musicianship.

The 4th album from German saxophonist Peter Van Huffel's Gorilla Mask, the 3rd on Clean Feed, is another powerful blending of jazz and rock forms in restless and profoundly determined music, energetic but intelligently structured, with great riffs and melodic grooves from Roland Fidezius (electric bass) and Rudi Fischerlehner (drums and percussion).

Swedish bass player Egil Kalman, here on modular syntheizer, joins Norwegian guitarist Fredrik Rasten, for a lovely album of drifting electronics and beautifully entwining acoustic guitar, unhurriedly developing environments of warm, slowly evolving chord structures that show influences from players like Catherine Lamb or the Wandelweiser collective.

The first of many projected volumes from the Chicago trio of Quin Kirchner on drums, percussion, sampler & electronics, Daniel Van Duerm on electric piano, organ, mellotron & electronics, and Matthew Lux on bass & electronics, with guest Jaimie Branch on trumpet, presenting three extended improvisations that maintain peaceful contemplation in captivating grooves.

Iconoclastic legend of the European Free Jazz movement, saxophonist Peter Brotzmann surprises with a (mostly) lyrical album of jazz standards (and some of his own compositions), interpreting pieces by Harry Barris/Gordon Clifford, Sigmund Romberg/Oscar Hammerstein II, Herbie Nichols, Dizzy Gillespie, George Gershwin/Ira Gershwin, and Sonny Rollins.

Recorded during Thollem's 2017 residency at Brooklyn's multi-discipline center Pioneer Works, the trio of Nels Cline on electric guitar and Michael Wimberly on drums apply treatments, alterations and processes to acoustic-electro improv, their unusual approach often inviting the listener to discover organization under a wonderful commotion of sound.

Derek Bailey's impressive guests for his July 1982 "Company" concert at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts were pianist Ursula Oppens, singer Julie Tippetts and pianist Keith Tippett, violinist/electronics wizard Philipp Wachsmann, guitarist Fred Frith, trombonist George Lewis, harpist Anne LeBaron, bassist Motoharu Yoshizawa and sound artist Akio Suzuki.

Two recordings of the Ahmed quartet of Pat Thomas (piano), Antonin Gerbal (drums), Joel Grip (bass) and Seymour Wright (sax), performing at The Empty Gallery, in Hong Kong, China and at Cafe Oto, In London, for two concerts of gut-wrenching jazz as they take on the East/West music of late composer, bassist, oud player and former Randy Weston/Art Blakey sideman, Ahmed Abdul-Malik

Originally released in Japan on the Arcangelo label, this 2014 album from Daniel Denis' Univers Zero finds the chamber rock band in a tightly dynamic configuration of reeds, keys, guitar, bass, drums and percussion, as they present intricately dark, complex musical schemes that reference avante classical forms through powerfully expressive rock forms.

Electroacoustic composer Michel Banabila compiles his dynamic works for dance & movement in this beautifully pressed limited double LP, presenting two 2019 works--'Dragonfly II' for "A Trace of Inevitability" (Yin Yue - Pennsylvania Ballet), and "Illicit Acquirement" for "Enough" (Patrick O"Brien - CUNY Dance Initiative)--and six prior pieces featuring his work with Conny Janssen Danst & Annabelle Lopez Ochoa.

Amsterdam-based bass clarinetist Ziv Taubenfeld leads the Bones trio, performing Taubenfeld's compositions, with double bassist Shay Hazan and drummer Nir Sabag, three friends since their youth, as their improvisation emphasizes lower tones through slowly slinking, saurian improvisation that bridges tonal work and energetic scrabbling.

Downtown NY cornerstone pianist Anthony Coleman is heard in a solo album of Coleman originals including a piece dedicated to Roscoe Mitchell, plus one piece each by Billy Strayhorn, John Klenner, and Ellington/George/Hodges/James, all beautifully captured at Boston's Jordan Hall as Coleman reveals his unique logic and inventive approach to solo performance.

Three British free jazz giants, having worked in a number of configurations and as a trio over many decades, are caught live in the Russian Drama Theater during the 2017 Vilnius Jazz Festival--Evan Parker on soprano & tenor saxophones, Barry Guy on bass, and Paul Lytton on drums, for four improvisations of nuance and surprise, incredible mastery, and profound conversation.

Working together often over decades, free improvising drummer Sabu Toyozumi and composer/improvising pianist Masahiko Satoh are heard here in a 1997 duo concert at C S Aka-Renga, in Yamaguchi City, Japan, for an engaging concert of energetic interaction, emphasizing Satoh's percussive approach to the keys and Sabu's inherent melodicism in his approach to drumming.

50 years after saxophonist Peter Brotzmann's Octet recorded the legendary "Machine Gun" album, the trio of Berlin pianist, composer Alexander von Schlippenbach and Dutch percussionist Han Bennink commemorated the album at Lila Eule in Bremen, the concert heard here so successful that the trio decided to release the album and continue on as a working trio.

A new chapter for Acid Mothers Temple and The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. as original members Kawabata Makoto (guitar, speed guru) and Higashi Hiroshi (synthesizer, noodle god) welcome Jyonson Tsu (vocal, midnight whistler), Satoshima Nani (drums, another dimension), and Wolf (bass, space and time) in a sophisticated spacer that references Gong, Grateful Dead, and even Bobby Vinton.

Bassist Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten (The Thing) and Stale Storlokken (Elephant9, Supersilent, Terje Rypdal) join the Nordic Krokofant trio of Axel Skalstad on drums, vibraphone, Tom Hasslan on guitar, and Jorgen Mathisen on saxophone, presenting the band's 3rd album, performing the 4-part work "Q", an intense and sophisticated album of complex and passionate instrumental rock.

Already planning a duo concert at Chicago's Hungry Brain between saxophonist Dave Rempis and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love as part of their Transmission Series, the duo expanded to a trio with the inclusion of visiting cellist Tomeka Reid, and then to a quintet by adding New York legend Joe McPhee on trumpet & sax, and NY bassist Brandon Lopez, recording this masterful, limited album.

Percussionist, Quakebasket label leader, and experimental sound artist Tim Barnes both subverts and respect the forms of electronica by turning it on its side, extracting unusual rhythms and structures from rhythmic elements and samples, at times following conventional direction and then breaking off into Barne's instinctive drive for abstraction and diversion.

"Weltformat" translates to "world-class", an apt description of the 20 year collaboration between sound explorers, improvisers and rock legends Bo Wiget and Luigi Archetti, heard in this diverse album of soundscapes and sonic intersections, with Archetti on guitar, mandolin, & electronics, and Wiget on cello, electronics, & vocals, fascinating their listener in shades of dark and light.

First stock of this 1999 7" from French sound artist Eric La Casa created as part of Joe Colley's "Explorer" series, the title translating to "the shore breathing" where each composition develops from field recordings of water, the first part more naturalist and adhering to the initial recordings, the second using sound processing to create something unique and mesmerizing.

Unreleased recordings from Derek Bailey's Company project, recorded at the BBC in 1983 with a stellar set of performers including Evan Parker (clarinet), Hugh Davies (electronics), Jamie Muir (percussion), Joelle Leandre (bass), J.D. Parran (winds), John Corbett (trumpet), Vinko Globokar (trombone), Ernst Reijseger (cello), and Peter Brotzmann (reeds).

LP-only, no 7" single. The second full-length album from Karkhana, a septet featuring members of Dwarfs Of East Agouza, A "Trio", Konstrukt, Chicago Tentet, Land of Kush, among others in four compositions of "crystal clear and deep, dark, distorted unrock compositions" in both electric and acoustic instrumentation, an international genre-crossing album.

Documenting the 12-day Italian experimental jazz festival at the ancient amphitheater Tasso della Quercia in 1978, revolving around Italian improvisers Tommaso Vittorini, Eugenio Colombo, Maurizio Giammarco, Alberto Corvini, Danilo Terenz, with visiting players Steve Lacy, Steve Potts, and Evan Parker, trombonist Roswell Rudd, pianist Frederick Rzewski, and drummer Noel McGhee.

A reissue of Musica Elettronica Viva's innovative 1978 open-structured album of free improvisation, United Patchwork, with the core performers of Frederic Rzewski on piano & electric piano, Richard Teitelbaum on synthesizer & conch shells, Alvin Curran on synthesizer & keys, plus Karl Berger on keys & vibraphone, Garrett List on trombone, and Steve Lacy on soprano sax.

A much-needed reissue of John Carter's 1982 LP "Dauwhe", the first chapter in his "Roots and Folklore" saga, a 5-part epic through African American heritage, performed with Carter himself on clarinet, Bobby Bradford (cornet), James Newton (flute), Charles Owens (sax, oboe & clarinet), Red Callender (tuba), Roberto Miranda (bass), William Jeffrey (drums), and Luis Peralta (percussion).

The final volume in the 4-LP set of Eugene Chadbourne's solo guitar recordings made while living in Calgary, Canada during the 70s, this 4th volume presenting four extended pieces blurring improvisation and experimental approaches to the instrument, alongside unusual percussive and sound devices, a quirky and technically amazing period of Doc Chad's incredible career.

Viennese-born, Berlin-based electro-acoustic composer Werner Dafeldecker (Polwechsel, Fennesz, &c) creates an intense and beautiful musique concrete and acousmatic journey in two parts, examining "perspective, extreme subjectivity and the specters that haunt our auditory worlds" through mysterious sound and enveloping sonic construction, a profound and riveting work.

Originally issued in 1972 on the FMP label, drummer Sven-Ake Johansson follows his instincts in polyrhythmic drum improvisation, demonstrating the prowess that makes him such a capable sideman of Peter Brotzmann, Alexander Von Schlippenbach, &c., through three direct and compelling statements of powerful rhythms that layer time signatures and tempos, dynamics and pulse.

An exhilarating live concert from the international trio led by Scandinavian saxophonist Torben Snekkestad, with Spanish pianist Agusti Fernandez, and British double bass player Barry Guy, blurring the lines between free improvisation, free jazz, and contemporary classical music in quick-witted interaction and explorative, innovative sounds and textures.

Reissuing the first of two albums from the NY collaboration of guitarist Fred Frith and cellist Tom Cora, both providing vocals, percussion, violin, & bass, in a classic example of Downtown NY genre-merging of improvisation and rock with a vicious edge, in smart songs and even smarter instrumental sections, an insanely inventive and intelligent album as vital now as it was then.

Free collective improvisation with an electronic edge from the trio of Nels Cline, double bassist William Parker and pianist Thollem McDonas, following up on their 2012 "Gowanus Session I" recorded in the same studio space, here expanding on the 1st session's shorter works with two large and evolving improvisations that balance reflective moments with intensive playing.

Recording in Chile at the University Austral in 2018, trumpeter Benjamin Vergara and guitarist Fred Frith take us on two extended journeys through free electroacoustic improvisation, Frith's providing diverse and intense sonic environments over which Vergara's virtuosic and intuitive approach to the trumpet soars; impressive, creative, cathartic.

Marks and Lebzelter's 1968 complex Columbia Masterworks LP is a mix of spoken word, electronics, experimental psychedelia, cut ups, tape loops and processed excerpts of interviews, with contributors including Alan Silva, Andrew Cyrille, Roswell Rudd, &c.

The 2nd volume of Sound American's "New American Songbooks" turns from the 1st volume's group approach to the singular voices of 4 masterful pianists--Kris Davis, Matt Mitchell, Aruan Ortiz, and Matthew Shipp--as they interpret the music of traditional hymns, Carla Bley, filmaker/composer Ed Bland, and bandcamp era composers Ryan Power & Christopher Weisman.

Four innovative and creative pianists performing solo at the Western Front between 1985 and 2015--Anthony Davis, Paul Plimley, Al Neil, John Kameel Farah--compiled on this extraordinary LP, the 2nd essential archive from one of Canada's most important performance spaces.