"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...

"When it was released in 1992, Toronto Töne was one of the first albums by trombonist Konrad Bauer to see the light of day outside Germany (West and/or East). This solo set was recorded live in Toronto in October 1991. Bauer's tromb...

"Sombre is an unlikely pairing yielding unexpected results. The classically trained harpist Helene Breschand meets the maverick avant rock guitarist Jean-Francois Pauvros. She plays an electro-acoustic harp, which -- unlike Zeena Parkin...

"Music for Three Rivers presents four improvisations (totaling 45 minutes) from British pianist Chris Burn's performance at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in May 1996, as well as five studio recordings f...

Eugene Chadbourne and Kevin Blechdom (aka Kristin Erickson) performing songs from their 2007 Victo performance, warped banjo rock instrumentals and songs.

"Amazingly, it was only the second time the two guitarists had ever played together, and the first time in North America. Both are strongly influenced by the country and folk traditions, and it was a real twisted hoedown that took place...

"The background: Xavier Charles has recorded an album (La Pièce) with the duo Kristoff K. Roll (Jean-Christophe Camps and Carole Rieussec); Diane Labrosse and Martin Tétreault record and perform together as the duo Parasite...

"Even though Canadian saxophonist Paul Cram has led his orchestra for years, first in Toronto and then Halifax, Campin Out is the first recording by this ensemble since the 1987 LP Beyond Benghazi. One cannot accuse Cram of being too pr...

"Taken from a 1987 solo date at Quebec's venerable Festival Musique Actuelle, Labyrinths finds avant garde jazz pianist Marilyn Crispell balancing Cecil Taylor's cataclysmic and staunchly free piano style with her own melodic and spacio...

Jean Derome's extended Dangereux Zhomes opened the 25th Victo Festival in 2008, adding Joane Hetu, Lori Freedman, Bernard Falaise, &c. for an incredible and expressive orchestra.

Live recordings and Derome's first release under his own name, inspired by Japanese magic squares and haikus, and performed in a group including Actuelle collective members Pierre Tanguay and Pierre Cartier.

Great duo set from bassist Dresser and "hyperpiano" (read: heavily prepared) player Maroney.

"Elevations is one of the very rare albums on which bassist Lisle Ellis assumes leadership. It was recorded in a San Francisco studio in June 1993. At the core of the instrumentation is Ellis' quartet, which includes Christopher Cauley a...

"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...

"The first completely solo Charles Gayle recording was recorded during a break in the Victoriaville Festival in 1994. Gayle went into a Montreal studio and played tenor on three tracks and bass clarinet on one, and preached while accomp...

"When Gianni Gebbia performed with his trio Terra Arsa at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in May 1997, he was already well-established in the Italian new jazz scene. His style draws from Coltranian jazz, ...

"Recorded in studio in November 1996, Ben Goldberg's project Eight Phrases for Jefferson Rubin was his second composition for sextet (after Twelve Minor, released by Avant in 1998). Rubin, who died tragically at the age of 35, was one o...

A duo of contrasts and compatabilities from German violinst Gunda Gottschalk and guzheng virtuoso Xu Fengxia, exotic and beautifully textured improvisation live from Victoriaville, 2008.

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"Prior to the release of this CD, Mexican flutist/pianist Roberto Morales Manzanares was virtually unknown in North America. He met Japan-born violinist Mari Kimura when she played at Callejon del Ruido, a new music festival Manzanares ...

"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...

This amazing trio performed at the 25th Victoriaville Festival of Musique Actuelle in 2008 with 2 guitars, 3 turntables, one spy-microphone, and 201 spectators.

"What Is the Difference Between Stripping and Playing the Violin? contains two compositions by West Coast avant-garde artist Miya Masaoka. Although an accomplished koto player, Masaoka does not play on this CD: her hands are full conduc...

"Since the release of Sudori with his Sud Ensemble in 1995, Italian trumpeter Pino Minafra remained discreet as a leader, preferring to blend his voice among others in large-scale groups like the Italian Instabile Orchestra, Gianluigi T...

"One of the greatest records to come out of Victo's (the record label of the Victoriaville Festival in Quebec) catalog is this 13-selection set by the Art Ensemble of Chicago multi-instrumentalist Roscoe Mitchell. Issued ion 1991, it co...

This incredible trio, recorded at the 25th Victo Actuelle Festival, play complex music using shared ideas about articulation, timbre, and methods of interaction.

"Each album or performance by My Cat Is an Alien is an invitation to leave on a cosmic journey, without resorting to the numerous cliche's of the space music genre. Think instead of a synth-less Ash Ra Tempel coming across the quiet impr...

"Active for over a decade, the trio New Windshas carved a distinctive niche in the arena of New Music by exploring the ambiguous territory in-between composition and improvisation while employing the particular tonalities and timbres of ...

"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 ...

"... I regard the NOW Orchestra as one of the finest large creative ensembles active in the last decade. The combinations of high levels of individual creativity and virtuosity with a strong sense of collectivity is a rare and treasured combination that the NOW Orchestra manifests very strongly..."-George Lewis, Earshot Jazz

"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...

"Vancouver pianist Paul Plimley and his comrades, bassist Lisle Ellis and drummer Scott Amendola, have issued a tough little gem of a recording in Safe-Crackers. Plimley's pianism ranges in voice from fierce avant-garde improvisation to...

"The mix between spoken words and drums was disturbing at first, especially since we sometimes miss a few lines because of all the noise, but we quickly got used to it. The whole show was a kind of conversation between the two performer...

A live concert at the 11Th Festival International De Musique Actuelle De Victoriaville on May 19th, 1994, from the free improvising trio of Frederik Alarie on contrabass, Paul Leger on drum, Yannick Rieu on tenor saxophone.

The Rova Saxophone Quartet performing compositions by Lindsay Cooper, Fred Frith, Barry Guy, and Larry Ochs, live in the studio in 1996.

The West Coast Rova Saxophone quartet in a 7 track studio album from 1995, from Jon Raskin on alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, sopranino saxophone, Steve Adams on alto saxophone, sopranino saxophone, Bruce Ackley on soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone and Larry Ochs on tenor saxophone, sopranino saxophone.

Beautiful, string-heavy set with French saxophonist Michel Doneda and koto master Kazue Sawai, plus Kazuo Imai on guitar, Le Quan Ninh on percussion, Tetsu Saitoh on bass, performing at the 20th Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville/

"Psycho-Acoustic is guitarist Elliott Sharp and harpist Zeena Parkins, and Blackburst is their first album together under that name (their first album was titled Psycho-Acoustic and simply credited to Sharp and Parkins). As with their f...

. Live recording from 1988.

"The avant rock/improv quartet Slawterhaus was invited to the 1990 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. The first 50 minutes of Live come from their performance, the last ten from a con...

New Yorkers Snow, Licht and Onda in their 2007 Victoriaville performance, an improvised set using sound from sparse to dense with mutated field recordings, synth, radio, &c.

"Berlin trombonist Konrad Bauer has become a regular of the Victo label. News From Berlin, a studio session with compatriot pianist Aki Takase, is his fourth album for the Victoriaville (Québec) imprint. The chemistry between the ...

"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...

Actuelle turntablist Martin Tetrault meets with radical hip-hop DJ Kid Koala at the 22nd Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in energetic duos filled with humor and instrumental acrobatics.

Francisco Lopez initiated this project in 2006 with the Pogus CD "Montreal Sound Matter", now expanded into an acousmatic group of linked tracks from a group of impressive sound artists.