An incredibly informed instant-composing ensemble drawing on free jazz and post rock sensibilities with nods to Indian ragas, jazz-inflected minimalism, Zappa-esque bouts of sonic anarchy, and German rock music from the 1970s, captured live at Toronto, Guelph and Hamilton, Canada in 2012.

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.

Univers Zero bassist Guy Seger brought this eclectic group of improvisers into the studio to develop the music on this genre-defying album, informed by a sextet of musicians who have performed and recorded with projects and artists including Vanishing Pictures, X-Legged Sally, Wrong Object, Tony Levin, Tony Bianco, Paul Schutze, Trevor Watts, Zeena Parkins, Jim O'Rourke, &c.

Starting with Blegvad's "Downtime" LP, this box traces the evolution of the Peter Blegvad Trio into a quintet with Karen Mantler and Bob Drake, released in a solid box with a double CD of alternate versions, unreleased material and live performances, plus a 72 page book of photographs, memorabilia, drawings, documents and recollections; the ultimate reissue!

This Heat and Camberwell Now drummer, songwriter, vocalist, experimenter and sociological observer Charles Hayward steps away from his drums for an intimate album of song, performing on piano with minimal accompaniment as he presents new songs and new versions of songs including pieces from Camberwell Now; powerfully fragile, insightful, fascinating.

The second album of this Guy Segers (Univers Zero) project in an eclectic ensemble of improvisers, rock musicians and experimenters, a genre-defying project of primarily instrumental work with interventions of song, merging acoustic & electric instruments with electronics, live improvisation with studio manipulation, to find new forms of mesmerizing music.

Fred Frith's solo career started on the West Coast Ralph Records label, home of The Residents; Frith met Residents front man Hardy Fox in passing in 1991, making recordings on a Pacific beach using Fox's Walkman, which they brought to a multi-track studio to record the basis for an ultimately unreleased album, now revived decades later as Fox rediscovered this fascinating material.

ZNR, the French trio of Hector Zazou, Joseph Racaille, and Patrick Portella, in a deluxe box set combining both of the official ZNR releases, "Barricades III" and "Traite de Mechanique Populaire" along with 2 CDs of additional released and unreleased material and a book of memories, histories, reflections, photographs, documents, interviews and other memorabilia.

Recorded in 2005 with an ensemble of like-minded instrumentalists and then edited and collaged for the next year and a half, this was a project of Charles Hayward during his time at The Albany in Deptford, London, using their digital recording suite to create a large work using a variety of strategies and developed in a dramatic story form, issued here for the 1st time.

RESTOCKED: Fred Frith's 1999 box set, presenting a large, flexible ensemble project using marked photographs and rules as scores while Frith directs and conducts as well as performing; permanent members are Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins, otherwise the balance of the 44 strong ensemble changes; recordings here are taken from 5 concerts, including the first in 1992 at AngelicA.

One of the most intense and unusual of the 80s Downtown NY groups merging rock and improvisation with strong attitudes and incredible musical concepts, these live recordings, including songs never before released, are taken from American and European concerts by the trio of guitarist Fred Frith, cellist Tom Cora, and either electric harpist Zeena Parkins or reedist Dave Newhouse.

Led by Univers Zero bassist and composer Guy Seger, the third album from Eclectic Maybe Band combines elements of rock, jazz, electronic and abstract landscapes, performed by an ensemble of chamber rock players including Discus label leader Martin Archer, varying groupings within the band focusing on each section in a mix of composed and improvised approaches.

"Superb, simply superb, but also disorienting and disquieting: that's Happy Wretched Family, Non Credo's second album, seven years after Reluctant Hosts. The avant-pop format found on the first LP has evolved into twisted shards of pop ...

Originally released by Woof Records in 1982 on cassette, this double CD reissues an essential lo-fi document from The Work (Bill Gilonis, Mick Hobbs, Tim Hodgkinson and Rick Wilson) in live performances from gigs and rehearsals assembled in cut-up form, adding new pieces and expanding on others, joined at times by Catherine Jauniaux, Bob Ostertag, Chris Cutler, &c.

The Ex's first single from the Netherland unique and socially charged band The Ex of Terrie Ex on guitar, G.W. Sok on voice, Ome Geurt on drums and Bas on bass, starting a legacy of intelligent and pointed rock, improvised and experimental music that continues 40 years later, reissued as a 2020 Record Store Day release on colored 7" vinyl.

Henry Cow's early years on the road, live recordings masterfully restored by Bob Drake, including the only known video of Henry Cow in Switzerland - amazing and essential!

An excellent 50 year overview of the work of drummer & composer Chris Cutler, best known for his work with Henry Cow and his label ReR Megacorp, but also heard here in groupings including Art Bears, Cassiber, News From Babel, Aqsak Mabou, Duck and Cover, Peter Blegvad, Rene Lussier, The Work, Pere Ubu, The (ec) Nudes, Domestic Stories, Cutler/Frith, Cutler/Parkins, &c.

Expanding on the history of Henry Cow in new recordings discovered after the 19-CD Cow Redux box, including: a well-recorded concert at the the first Glastonbury Fayre in 1972, the earliest recordings of the quartet of Martin Ditcham, Fred Frith, John Greaves and Tim Hodgkinson; a 1978 grouping with Phil Minton; unrecorded compositions from 1977 in Bilbao; and a 1976 Chaumont Concert.

Originally released in 2001 on the Magaibutsu label, the 3rd studio album from Japan's Koenjihyakkei led by drummer/vocalist Yoshida Tatsuya energetically blends progressive rock, chamber rock, fusion and composed forms, here revisited for the 2nd time with the 2009 expanded reissue remixed again with new additions, plus three bonus tracks from a 2020 concert.

Originally released in 2001 on the Magaibutsu label, the 3rd studio album from Japan's Koenjihyakkei led by drummer/vocalist Yoshida Tatsuya energetically blends progressive rock, chamber rock, fusion and composed forms, here revisited for the 2nd time with the 2009 expanded reissue remixed again with new additions, plus three bonus tracks from a 2020 concert.

The 19th Pere Ubu album brings members from the history and offshoots of the band that initiated in Cleveland with vocalist David Thomas, melded with members Keith Moline and Andy Diagram from Pale Boys, legendary drummer Chris Cutler (Wooden Birds & Pere Ubu), clarinetist & guitarist Alex Ward and bassist Michel Templem, for 17 wide-ranging songs, often eccentric, but always uniquely Ubu.

After The Work and his involvement with This Heat, guitarist Mick Hobbs formed Officer!, a shape-shifting RIO band that presented Hobb's unique, amusing and incisive songs, releasing three proper albums and, in 1989, a cassette on the Swiss label No Records that is here reissued, half of the album written for a stage play called Bandagen by Grazia Pergoletti.

After The Work and his involvement with This Heat, guitarist Mick Hobbs formed Officer!, a shape-shifting RIO band that presented Hobb's unique, amusing and incisive songs, releasing three proper albums and, in 1989, a cassette on the Swiss label No Records that is here reissued, half of the album written for a stage play called Bandagen by Grazia Pergoletti.

Madrid multi-instrumentalist and cross media artist Edith Alonso in an album of prepared solo electric bass improvisations, a four part work of muscular and shadowy sound, dark vibrations with crepitating edges making a sinister and cathartic dungeon of sound.

Arrive, formed in 2001, is Aram Shelton's Chicago band with vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Tim Daisy, a remarkable album of structured free playing.

Each track named after a mythical Scottish character, the Ukrainian trio of Stanislav Bobrytsky on modular synth, Pavlo Lisovsky on tenor saxophone and Anton Boldenko on viola create a music merging free jazz principles with modular synthetic drone, creating an orchestral sound that still elucidates the detail of their uniquely orchestrated, rich sonic explorations.

Matching two distinct keyboards--Xavier Camarasa's piano with Jean-Marc Foussat's synthi AKS--two improvisers present two extended works roughly translating to "The Immensity of The Instincts" and "There, or all is water ...", contrasting between melodic and otherworldly sounds, a complex tapestry that guides and excites the listener in an unusual convergence.

A unique exposition of an 1893 text by Robert Charles Hope exploring the legends of England's "holy wells", the water of which was purported to have healing properties, adapted to atmospheric songs by Drake and performed on a 1940 Hammond model BC organ and a Challen upright piano; delicate and descriptive songs that detail the legends and the hope they inspired.

An electroacoustic composition of environment & sound punctuated with subtle percussion and electronic interventions, developed from field recordings, performances on Roosevelt Island, and studio recordings in Brooklyn by the duo of Tucker Dulin on bells, bowl, can, cymbal, lentils, mallet & whistle and Ben Owen on paper mic, speaker boxes, op amps & cassette.

2 CDs of works for violin, piano & vibraphone, composed and performed by two young American composers and members of the ensemble Ordinary Affects, who have recorded music by the Jurg Frey, Magnus Granberg, Michael Pisaro, Eva Maria Houben, &c.; the 1st disc presents the Feldman-esque work of JPA Falzone, while the 2nd contains an exquisite new work by Morgan Evans-Weiler.

During 2012 Patrick Farmer walked half of the Welsh Coast, writing a series of observations, which on this release are read in environmental settings by Antoine Beuger, Jeph Jerman, Bruno Guastalla, Sally Ann McIntyre, Holly Pester, Daniela Cascella, & Michael Pisaro-Liu.

British saxophonist Simon Rose uses extended and evocative techniques in this exceptional set of duos with Paul Stapleton, who plays a Bonsai Sound Sculpture, an assemblage of unusual electronic and acoustic components allowing a wide range of expression.

"Anamnesis: Ecumenical Mysteries was Yugoslavian saxophonist/composer Boris Kovac's first release out of Europe (on the Canadian label Disques Victo). It was also his first work recorded in Yugoslavia following the war that forced him t...

Swedish composer and pianist Johan Lindvall in a series of 27 works performed solo or in an ensemble with Vilde Sandve Alnaes (violin), Kristine Tjogersen(clarinet), Jan Martin Gismervik(percussion), Henrik Munkeby Norstebo(trombone), Ina Sagstuen(voice), & Fredrik Rasten(guitar).

This mercurial and impressive 2021 Victoriaville Festival concert brought together improvisers from three duos as a quartet: guitarist Rene Lussier, who has a long running duo with turntablist Martin Tetreault; Erick d'Orion on computer and electronics, who also has a experimental sound duo with Tetrault; and frequently collaborator with Lussier, drummer Robbie Kuster.

A unconventional yet lyrical album of creative jazz from the New York quartet of Angelika Niescier on alto sax, Denman Maroney on hyperpiano, James Ilgenfritz on contrabass, and Andrew Drury on percussion, Maroney's piano preparations and Drury's objects complementing complex time signatures and intricate notated materials that yield lush, beautiful music.

Creating soundscapes from homemade instruments, Text-To-Speech, AI voices, lap steel guitar, found objects, field recording, &c., the duo of sound artists Sam Scranton from Chicago and Neil Quigley from Kilkenny, Ireland, present six unusually unfolding compositions of deceptively relaxed environments layered with mysterious elements and a sly sense of humor.

Intelligent and inspired compositions by saxophonist Evan Shaw and trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud performed with Jean Martin (drums and laptop), Wes Neal (double bass), and Tomasz Krakowiak (percussion).

London's Remote Viewers in their 13th release, quoting W.H. Auden in an album of excellent structured improvisation with David Petts, Caroline Kraabel, Sue Lynch & Adrian Northover (saxes), John Edwards (bass & drums), and Rosa Lynch (keys and percussion).

"As Frogworth says in one review: 'Two giants of Australian avant-garde music getting together here, dedicating their record to Australian composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks, whose house in Paddington, Sydney is used for residencies/sabbatic...

Eschewing his many monikers (Birg Borgenthal, Elan Pauer and Ra Ra da Boff) pianist Oliver Schwerdt steps away from EUPHORIUM_freakestra, uses his given name, and takes the stage of the Bauhaus building in Dessau where such legends as Fred van Hove and Alexander von Schlippenbach have played, to record these four exemplary and extended, kinetic & free solo piano improvisations.

Sim is the 3 piece electronic/rock band of Teruyuki, Yoshio & Masahiro, here with Otomo Yoshihide on turntables and synth, and amazing album of rhythms in a This Heat "Repeat" mode.

Bringing together two noise improvisers and experimenters, Guro Skumsnes Moe from Sult and MoE performing on octabass & electric bass, and Philippe Petit (who has albums on Aural Terrains, Monotype and Bolt) performing on synthesizer and turntables, both also providing vocal utterance, for two thick journeys of twisted, diverse and often deep sonics bridged by an abstract interlude.

Peter Blegvad expands his trio with Henry Cow alumni, drummer Chris Cutler and bassist John Greaves, this time with Karen Mantler on keys and chordal instruments, and Bob Drake on guitar, voice and percussion, reworking songs from his solo career and work with Slapp Happy, alongside new numbers of classic Blegvad wordplay, wit, depth and humor; like the label, Recommended!

An amazing collection and reflection on the work of percussionist, composer and connector Chris Cutler of Henry Cow fame and founder of the highly influential Recommended Records label and distribution service, through 10 CDs, 1 DVD and two books of documentation, artwork, photographs, published and unpublished texts in a sturdy box, with over five hours of unreleased materials.

Creating structured works from real time improvisations, Guy Seger's (Univers Zero) large ensemble of absolutely impressive players breaks down to smaller grouping to record the layers of each piece, which Seger then uses as raw material for each finished piece, as elements of rock, jazz, composed, and experimental forms merge into accomplished and engaging compositions.

Reissuing the 2013 box set of the 1980s UK/Euro improvising rock band Cassiber, including their 4 remastered studio albums + 2 additional CDs, a 2 hour DVD, and a 32-page color book, revealing an amazing band merging experimental rock, fringe jazz, punk, pop, plunderphonics, improvisation, & musique concrete with an energetic and complex form of studio composition - superb!

While still a member of Henry Cow, guitarist Fred Frith released his first solo album simply titled Guitar Solos in 1974, a remarkable album of expression through preparations, treatments and effects; 50 years later Frith expands on that album with new compositions using a similar setup as the original, paired in this 2-LP release with the remastered original album.

Composed using an "exquisite corpse" method during the pandemic, where each player provided a partially complete track with instructions to expand their concept, enlisting an incredible set of musicians across the US & Europe, directed by Moe! Staiano, including Jesse Quattro, Fred Frith, Carla Kihlstedt, GW Sok, Amy X Neuburg, Darren Johnston, &c &c.