Audio experimenters Alfredo Costa Monteiro and Miguel A. Garcia join forces in an album titled after "Aq'ab'al", the Mayan Astrology Sign about polar opposites--dawn and dusk, hot and cold, black and white--which represents renewal and change, through a series of opposing audio events, forceful sounds of texture, feedback, and intervention.

"Fracture Mechanics" is the scientific study of cracks in any material, an apt title from these European experimental innovators--Burkhard Beins, Lucio Capece, Martin Kuchen, and Paul Vogel--pulling back the curtain on process and creating an impressive album crossing acoustic and electronic improv, organized sound, and inexplicable interaction; recommended.

The meeting of Johnny Chang (viola), Jamie Drouin (suitcase modular synth), Dominic Lash (double bass), Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga(zither, and David Ryan (bass clarinet) recording at Bourough welsh Congregational Chapel, in London in 2013, recorded by Another Timbre label leader Simon Reynell, for a unique merging of disparate approaches to ea-improv.

A live concert at Dom Cultural Center in Moscow, Russia in 2015 from Norwegian tuba player Martin Taxt, Saint Petersburg violinist and object player Andrey Popovskiy, and ppool performer Kurt Liedwart focusing on sinewaves and noise, in an extended lowercase improvisation exploring harmonic and microtonal sounds.

Cilantro is the duo of multi-instrumentalists Angelica Castello on paetzold, ukulele, organ, tapes, & electronics, and Billy Roisz on electric bass, organ, tv, piezzo, computer & electronics, scrutinizing the activity in bordering areas between noise and silence, tenderness and rudeness, beat and drone, inner consciousness and outer awareness, control and freedom.

"Recorded live at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in May 1996, In the Land of Milk and Honey features trombonist Anne-Marie Roelofs' Waste Watchers trio, which also features Johannes Krämer (electric ...

Italian drummer and percussionist Tiziano Tononi leads a large ensemble performing the music of American Rock Band The Allman Brothers, who Tononi cites as a major influence in his life for both their style, and for incorporating jazz, blues, southern rock and New Orleans cross-rhythms.

Norway's unconventional improvising quartet SPUNK with Maja S. K. Ratkje, Hild Sofie Tafjord, Lene Grenager and Kristin Andersen are heard live at Nasjonal Jazzscene in Oslo, Norway in 2015, capturing these two sets of uniquely unexpected and jaw-dropping recordings from a band on the cutting edge of avant improvisation.

...

"In 1996, Thurston Moore was still mostly known for his work with the rock group Sonic Youth. In 1996, the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville was an established institution in the realm of serious experimental, ...

"Even for the avant-garde fan acquainted with the Far East Side Band's first CD, Caverns, Urban Archaeology cannot fail to surprise. The group's blend of Oriental and Occidental instruments and music forms provides quite a change of sce...

"Sudori is, simply put, an avant-jazz rollercoaster with blues, Dixieland, circus music, and free improvisation all tumbling in your stomach with strong Italian herbs and spices. Trumpeter Pino Minafra is accompanied by his Sud Ensemble...

"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 ...

The 1st in a series of unreleased concerts from the 90s recorded in Japan by Chap-Chap Records, acquired by NoBusiness to bring them to light; this duo album brings the late and influential UK free improvising trombonist Paul Rutherford together with drummer Sabu Toyozumi for five far-ranging dialogs of both reflective and enthusiastical energetic playing.

A multimedia box set of Anthony Braxton's opera work "Trillium J", containing live performance video on Blu-ray disc of a 2014 performance at Roulette in NY, and studio recording on 4-CD set, with 12 vocalists, 12 instrumental soloists and a full orchestra.

The 1st in a series of unreleased concerts from the 90s recorded in Japan by Chap-Chap Records, acquired by NoBusiness to bring them to light; this duo album brings the late and influential UK free improvising trombonist Paul Rutherford together with drummer Sabu Toyozumi for five far-ranging dialogs of both reflective and enthusiastical energetic playing.

A brilliant quintet brought together for the Tampere Jazz Happening, in Finland in 2013, with NY trumpeter Peter Evans, UK saxophonist John Butcher, Australian bassist Clayton Thomas, German drummer/percussionist Paul Lovens, and French pianist Frederic Blondy for a phenomenal extended improvisation presented in parts: "Une Aile Dissoute Dans La Lumiere".

A masterful concert of freely improvised creative jazz performed live at SMUP, Parede, in Lisboa, Portugal in 2015 by the trio of saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, double bassist Goncalo Almeida, and drummer Marco Franco, in a great dialog of skill and control that simmers without frenetic excess, leaving room for unique textural and introspective moments.

Following double bassist Mike Majkowski's Astral Spirts cassette "Neighbouring Objects", this vinyl release is Majkowski's 7th solo album, here using analog synthesizer, percussion, piano, vibraphone, samples, and field recordings to create an amazing sonic universe through sound, tone, timbre, deep cogitation and mutant interjections.

"Recorded (and released) one year after Konrad Bauer's Disques Victo debut Toronto Tone, a solo-trombone-with-electronics affair, Three Wheels: Four Directions features his favorite trio at the time. Bauer, bassist Peter Kowald, and dru...

"Noir is one of Canadian pianist Paul Plimley's best trio sessions. It was recorded in a Montreal studio over two days in October 1992. Longtime partner Lisle Ellis is on bass, more recent encounter Gregg Bendian on drums, and saxophoni...

The 20th anniversary of director Reinhold Friedl's Zeitkratzer ensemble, who have reinterpreted in surprising ways the music of a far-ranging and eclectic set of composers and performers, as they take on the innovative electronic rock band Kraftwerk in six interpretations from their first two albums.

"This set by longtime collaborators Dave Burrell and David Murray (playing exclusively tenor sax here) was recorded at the Victoriaville Festival in Quebec in 1991. The live sound is good, the performances exceptional (even by their sta...

Japanese Steelpan player Yoshio Machida's 11th solo album, performed on the metal slit drum, made from a small gas tank tuned to the C scale over 2 octaves, which he takes into warm territories of rich overtones and melodic invention influenced by Kora, Gamelan, Kulintang and Myanmar musics.

"To document the 1989 edition of the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, the label Disques Victo released a compilation album -- a one-time project. Dix Improvisations Victoriaville 1989 culls short to medium-len...

"In October 1987, keyboardist/computer wiz Richard Teitelbaum and violinist Carlos Zingaro performed at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. The next year the label Disques Victo released The Sea Between, comp...

A strong and enthralling set of dialogs captured live from the working duo of pianist Stephen Grew and saxophonist Trevor Watts on alto & soprano, intricate exchanges of great energy but also great compassion and introspection, a well-rounded set of adventurous exchanges that highlight the incredible skills of both players.

...

...

Creative Sources regulars Ernesto Rodrigues on viola and Abdul Moimeme on electric guitar join the long-running duo of alto saxophonist Ilia Belorukov and electronics artist and Mikroton label-leader Kurt Liedwart to record these two lowercase electroacoustic improvisations, transmuting acoustic and electronic sound in both stark and subdued ways.

An extended improvisation of mostly quiet, occasionally cantankerous, but always intriguing free music, primarily acoustic playing with a strong cast of string players, plus reeds, keys, and computer, creating suspenseful music of great tension and impressive restraint as the sound evolves in gradations and facets of sound.

"An interesting title to begin with. The situation of feeling like an extraneous body in a system that works according to peculiar principles. Or, in a more "mental" acceptation, the priceless condition of being completely delivered fro...

...

1 Maneries Ramonandi Fournellos 33:16

...

...

...

"While the previous Garcia/Branche CD seemed also improvised to me, this five-person work is of the two the more improvised one. The quintet of players also like their sounds to be sustaining, placing bows on strings, but also motorized...

...

...

...

...

An unusual improvising string quartet plus alto saxophone, Thea Farhadian (violin), Ernesto Rodrigues (viola), Guilherme Rodrigues (cello), Klaus Kurvers (double bass) and Nuno Torres (alto saxophone) present the 11-part "De-col//age_", a slowly-developing work balancing unconventional approaches to their instruments with more conventional strategies.

Two recordings from the lowercase acoustic improvising trio of Portuguese players Ernesto Rodriduges on viola and Nuno Torres on alto saxophone and objects with Saint Petersburg alto saxophonist Ilia Belorukov, recording at Belorukov's Spina! label's studio, and again live at Vertikal' Gallery in Saint Petersburg in 2016.

Recorded over a 3 year period, the trio of Portuguese string improvisers Ernesto Rodrigues on viola and Guilherme Rodrigues on cello met with New Haven, Connecticut double bassist & synth player Daniel Barbiero, developing this detailed, two part lowercase acoustic improvisation with a spacious, patient feeling that interacts with its ambient environment.

Named for the Leipzig, Poland location in which this live concert was recorded, the acoustic free improvising quartet of Ernesto Rodrigues on viola, Guilherme Rodrigues on cello, Nuno Torres on alto saxophone, and Johannes von Buttlar on percussion, explore extended ranges and approaches to their instrument in these building and detailed dialogs.

As the album cover displays, basalto are the black rocks resulting from lava, here represented in the slowly flowing, hard toned electro-acoustic improv of the Portuguese trio of Ernesto Rodrigues onoctave viola & baritone violin, Abdul Moimeme on electric guitar, and Antez on percussion.

...

...

...