At long last, Creative Sources is shipping its latest batch of 15 albums! We also expect to catch up with Out of Your Head Records over the next couple of weeks, with seven new releases featuring Stephan Crump, Brandon Seabrook, the band George, Janel Leppin, and more. From Pi Recordings, we're looking forward to the latest releases, including the vinyl edition of Henry Threadgill's recent album, new music from Marc Ribot and Miles Okazaki, and Trio Imagination (David Virelles, Reggie Workman, and Andrew Cyrille) on CD and LP. Also shipping to us today is the next ALAY release, Miles Davis' 2nd Quintet: Live 1967 in Europe.

In fact, our shelves are already filling up with albums that arrived this week. Our cataloger, Carl, has been enjoying a much-deserved vacation, so we're looking forward to getting these releases into the catalog early next week. Among them are four new titles from NoBusiness: Sonny Murray, Arthur Doyle, and Rasul Siddik's New Light and Incantations; Julius Hemphill's Rivbea Live! Series, Volume 5; and Ed Hazell's book Energy Center: A History of Studio Rivbea.

We've also received three releases from Burning Ambulance: Elisabeth Coudoux and Chuck Roth's Tomaten auf den Augen, Sbatax + Gross's Lapilli, and Sofia Borges and Yedo Gibson's Puxe Means Pull. On its way is Jason Kao Hwang's Second Life, featuring the trio of Hwang, Andrew Drury, and Ken Filiano. Already here is the new Kris Davis Trio album, Lost in Geneva, which I've found myself returning to repeatedly — an outstanding example of contemporary piano trio playing. We also have three new Relative Pitch releases to activate this week, with more details coming soon.

And there's still more on the horizon: Ava Mendoza's The Circular Train on vinyl and James Brandon Lewis' Red Lily Quintet with Calling Antonin are both making their way to us.

It's an extraordinary assortment of music, joining the many excellent albums we've announced this week and highlighted below. Between the new arrivals, long-awaited shipments, and remarkable recordings still on their way, our fall season is shaping up beautifully. The leaves may be changing color, but around here, autumn is positively bursting with sound!

Philz Weekly Recommendations:

Three albums from Satoko Fujii have topped my listening list over the last two weeks, each revealing a different facet of her remarkable musical imagination. Two are large-ensemble recordings, though strikingly different in character. Orchestra Berlin takes the more experimental route, combining acoustic and electronic instruments with the unexpected textures of newspaper used as a sound source. It's a wildly fascinating album, guided by a flexible score in which hand gestures cue sections and invite spontaneous responses from the ensemble. By contrast, Orchestra Nagoya's Korekara (meaning "from now on," "hereafter," or "starting now") is a spirited celebration of musicians and community, unfolding through a four-part composition that gives the ensemble's remarkable soloists ample room to shine.

At the more abstract end of free improvisation is Fujii's trio with no-input mixing board improviser Toshimaru Nakamura and vocalist Tenko, known for her collaborations with Fred Frith. Released on the Ftarri-associated label Meenna, The One Who Walks Through the Night ventures into a very different sonic landscape, where voice, piano, and electronics meet in unpredictable and often startling ways. More elusive than the orchestral recordings but no less compelling, these improvisations reveal the musicians' extraordinary command of sound, space, and silence, shaped by decades of experience and the kind of deep, intuitive listening that makes fully free improvisation so rewarding.

Fujii, Satoko Orchestra Berlin: Second Attempt (Libra)

Satoko Fujii's Orchestra Berlin with saxophones, trumpets, trombone, synthesizer, bass and dual drums builds a five-part suite from cued fragments, collective improvisation and open-form structures, balancing composed materials with spontaneous ensemble invention, including a striking section performed with newspapers that extends Fujii's ongoing exploration of freedom within large-ensemble composition.

Ten-Toh-Maru (Fujii / Nakamura / Tenko): The One Who Walks Through The Night (Meenna)

Vocalist Tenko, pianist Satoko Fujii and no-input mixing-board pioneer Toshimaru Nakamura form Ten-Toh-Maru for three extended free improvisations balancing wordless vocal expression, resonant and percussive piano textures, and finely controlled electronic feedback, unfolding through patient collective listening into sparse, ritualistic, abrasive and dreamlike sound environments.

Fujii, Satoko Orchestra Nagoya: Korekara (Libra)

Composed by Satoko Fujii to celebrate the 20th anniversary of a beloved Nagoya arts cafe, this four-part suite for her 16-member Orchestra Nagoya combines adventurous arrangements, expressive solo improvisations, and powerful brass and reed passages, blending free jazz with infectious rhythmic grooves in a joyful, forward-looking celebration of community and creative collaboration.

Double bassist Luke Stewart's Exposure Quintet brings together the Washington, DC improviser with four Chicago luminaries: Edward Wilkerson Jr., Ken Vandermark, Jim Baker, and Avreeayl Ra. Originally suggested by Chicago saxophonist and community organizer Dave Rempis, the group previously released an album on Astral Spirits. Here, their collective improvisations move freely between acoustic and electronic worlds, drawing on an adventurous instrumental palette that includes oud, didgeridoo, and ARP synthesizer. The result is an expansive, unpredictable meeting of five distinctive musical voices, united by a shared appetite for exploration.

From the West Coast comes Volume 4: The Animal I Am, the latest from Rabbit Rabbit Radio, a duo that has become one of my favorite groups. Their music approaches composition and improvisation from wonderfully unpredictable angles, gleefully ignoring genre boundaries while maintaining a remarkably cohesive identity. With a long history of collaborations across such adventurous ensembles as Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Causing a Tiger, Surplus 1980, Cosa Brava, The Norman Conquest, Tin Hat, and Larry Ochs' Sax & Drumming Core, the two musicians bring an extraordinary range of experience to their work. That shared history fuels a confident musical flexibility, allowing them to move effortlessly between contrasting ideas, textures, and traditions without ever sounding constrained by any one of them.

Stewart, Luke Exposure Quintet (w/ Vandermark / Wilkerson / Baker / Ra): In The Air And On The Ground (RogueArt)

Bringing together DC double bassist Luke Stewart with Chicago mainstays Edward Wilkerson Jr., Ken Vandermark, Jim Baker and Avreeayl Ra, the Exposure Quintet blends collective improvisation with field recordings and samples, creating spacious, exploratory music combining saxophones, clarinets, strings, keyboards, bass and percussion with a strong sense of place.

Rabbit Rabbit Radio (Carla Kihlstedt / Matthias Bossi): Volume 4: The Animal I Am (Klanggalerie)

Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi's Rabbit Rabbit Radio return for their 4th volume of music poised between art rock, folk, chamber music, industrial texture and improvisation, joined by Jeremy Flower and Jon Evans as voice, strings, drums, electronics, guitars and bass shape finely crafted pieces on the border between popular music and art song, balancing experimental detail with direct emotional impact.

Ezz-thetics now, the latest incarnation of the Hat Hut lineage, has focused primarily on the excellent European free improvisation scene. I'm not familiar with all of the musicians on the label, which has made researching the seven new albums we received this month particularly enjoyable. Only two have made it into this week's mailing: Kaleidoscope - Empathy from Vienna-based composer and saxophonist Sophie Hassfurther, and Ringi Ringd Coint from composer and drummer Jonathan Delazer. Both explore lyrical contemporary jazz through free improvisation and expressive soloing, though each takes a distinctly different approach.

The more immediately approachable of the two comes from a musician entirely new to me: Sophie Hassfurther. Her biography reveals an impressive career, with numerous grants and composition scholarships from Austrian cultural institutions, appearances at festivals including Wien Modern, Rotterdam's Basklarinet Festijn, and Germany's Moers Festival, and extensive work in theater and interdisciplinary productions.

Her collaborations are equally intriguing. She's a member of the transnational ensemble Vostok alongside Vincent Courtois, Guus Janssen, and Fie Schouten, and her long-standing partnership with Amsterdam-based bass clarinetist Oğuz Büyükberber produced the acclaimed duo project Mind Like Water. More recent collaborations include German saxophonist Frank Gratkowski, drummer Sofia Borges, and clarinetist Fie Schouten. That's quite a résumé, and I'm happy that ezz-thetics now has brought her music to my attention.

The other album is equally rewarding, led by another composer and musician previously unknown to me: Jonathan Delazer. I do, however, have a long history with the work of tenor saxophonist Tobias Delius, going back to his 2003 Kontrans album with Jaap Blonk, Consensus. Since then, we've carried 27 albums featuring Delius, including collaborations with Paul Dunmall, Tristan Honsinger, Jason Roebke, Christian Lillinger, and many other essential artists in our catalog. His Hook, Line & Sinker on Relative Pitch is well worth exploring, for example. Like Delazer, bassist Jakob Obleser is new to me, but he proves an excellent partner, contributing sensitive pizzicato and bowed playing throughout.

Of the two releases, Ringi Ringd Coint takes the more experimental path, propelled by intriguing rhythmic ideas, perhaps unsurprising for a drummer-led trio. The music never strays too far from jazz idioms, but finds considerable freedom within them, shifting between lyrical passages, restless rhythmic exchanges, and open improvisation. Delius is particularly compelling, his expressive playing punctuated by the personal quirks, unexpected turns, and playful asides that make him such a distinctive improviser. The trio's interaction is tight, alert, and remarkably responsive, keeping the listener guessing without ever becoming overwhelming. It's a terrific balance of adventurous exploration and musical accessibility.

Hassfurther, Sophie: Kaleidoscope - Empathy (ezz-thetics now)

Viennese saxophonist Sophie Hassfurther leads an octet blending contemporary jazz, chamber music, and free improv across ten original compositions inspired by ideas of empathy, identity, and transformation, weaving intricate horn arrangements, shifting rhythmic patterns, and expressive solos into richly layered ensemble passages that balance composed structures with spontaneous and collective exploration.

Gottliche Skizzen (Delazer / Delius / Obleser): Ringi Ringd Coint (ezz-thetics now)

Drummer Jonathan Delazer leads the Göttliche Skizzen trio with Tobias Delius on tenor saxophone and clarinet and Jakob Obleser on double bass in eight original compositions that intertwine microtonal experimentation, free improvisation, and contemporary chamber jazz, drawing on medieval musical traditions, European folk rhythms, and glissando techniques in a fluid exploration of melody, texture, and rhythmic form.

Moving a bit more quickly through the other "picks" of the week, I reintroduced the Henry Kaiser collaboration with Ukrainian sound artist Tungu, a really interesting album that may have been overlooked during our overstock sale. I'm a big Kaiser fan, and I know Tungu from his trio with Mia Zalbeka and Stefan Strasser on FMR, and his Public Eyesore solo album, Successful Utilization of Elements. Helene Breschand and Elliott Sharp continue their amazing collaboration as Chansons du Crépuscule with Une Lumiere Tenac. If you're not familiar with their work, they've developed a unique musical language through electronically treated harp and guitar, ethereal vocals, beautiful pacing, and strong underlying grooves.

Berlin-based saxophonist Gebhard Ullmann delivers an excellent collective improvisation album on ESP-Disk, not surprising given the company of Steve Swell, Joe Morris, and Charles Downs. The quartet recorded at Jim Clouse's Park West Studios while Ullmann was visiting New York, bringing together four seasoned improvisers for a lively and inventive session. Another collective effort comes from the European quartet of Philipp Wachsmann on violin, Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg on voice, Pascal Marzan on 10-string microtonal guitar, and Lawrence Casserley on signal processing. These musicians have crossed paths in various configurations over the years, but this is their first recording together as a quartet. The combination of unconventional vocal techniques, microtonal guitar, violin, and real-time electronic processing makes for three fascinating improvisations, with an unusually broad range of textures and interactions.

Two new releases from Brooklyn's 577 Records take very different approaches to contemporary jazz and improvisation. The first, Spatial Recognition, is a sprawling double CD from Airlift, an eight-piece Philadelphia ensemble led by percussionist Kevin Diehl. The group's instrumentation is fascinating, combining saxophones, flute, trumpet, clarinets, two electric guitars, acoustic bass, and an array of Afro-Cuban percussion. The music draws on graphic scores, structured compositions, and free improvisation, with layers of percussion driving collective exchanges that can be rhythmically dense, expansive, and unpredictable. It's an ambitious project that finds common ground between free jazz and a broad range of rhythmic traditions.

The second release, We'll Let You Know When We Find Out, is a more intimate and personal project from pianist Sonelius Smith and bassist Adam Kahan. Despite Smith's long career in creative jazz, his work was unfamiliar to me, making this another welcome discovery. There's a sense of his experience in the way the music moves between composed material and spontaneous interaction. Recorded over several years, from 2023 through 2026, the album shifts between small-group jazz and larger ensembles with saxophone, trumpet, and flute. Alongside original compositions are interpretations of pieces by Wayne Shorter, George Gershwin, and Sidney Bechet.

Last but hardly least is a previously unreleased Cecil Taylor Unit performance, Live at the KiMo Theatre Albuquerque 1979. We're still working on the audio samples for this one, which we're capturing directly from the LPs, but the music is fantastic: four performances spread across two records in a beautifully produced edition. I'm often preoccupied with the increasingly high prices of vinyl releases, but this is one of those cases where the music and presentation really justify the cost. The two LPs come housed in a heavy tip-on gatefold jacket with ink pigment and metallic foil stamping, accompanied by a 12-page listening guide from Taylor scholar Ben Young. It's an impressive package, and one that does justice to an extraordinary performance.

Tungu / Henry Kaiser : The Unexplained (Klanggalerie)

The second collaboration between Ukrainian sound artist Tungu and guitarist Henry Kaiser, layering field recordings, samples and electronics with Kaiser's exploratory guitar across ten shifting electroacoustic environments, moving from atmospheric drift to fractured abstraction, with cellist Hui-Chun Lin joining the extended "Shadows That Slowly Catch Up."

Chansons Du Crepuscule (Helene Breschand / Elliott Sharp): Une Lumiere Tenac (Klanggalerie)

The second duo album from French harpist Helene Breschand and New York guitarist Elliott Sharp, pairing harp and guitar in an angular, hard-edged exchange that moves freely between composed and improvised forms, with Sharp's extended sonic language and Breschand's theatrical, Dada-tinged vocal presence giving the music a restless, expressionistic character.

Ullmann, Gebhard (w/ Steve Swell / Joe Morris / Charles Downs): Coffee And Berries (ESP Disk)

Berlin-based saxophonist Gebhard Ullmann joins longtime collaborator Steve Swell on trombone with a newly assembled rhythm section of bassist Joe Morris and drummer Charles Downs for a set of instant compositions, combining Ullmann's tenor saxophone and live electronics with the quartet's collective improvisational interplay, drawing on their extensive experience in avant-garde jazz and free improvisation.

Casserley / Marzan / Van Schouwburg / Wachsmann: Being (Bead)

An adventurous quartet of European improvisers — Philipp Wachsmann on violin, Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg on voice, Pascal Marzan on 10-string microtonal guitar, and Lawrence Casserley on signal processing — come together for three collective improvisations that merge extended techniques, vocal improv, microtonal textures, and electronic transformations into richly detailed, constantly evolving soundscapes.

Airlift (Diehl / Lowery / Lawson / Levin / Lavelle / Hotep / Marquez / Dennis): Spatial Recognition [2 CDs] (577 Records)

An eight-member Philadelphia ensemble led by percussionist Kevin Diehl brings together tenor saxophones, flute, trumpet, clarinets, guitars, bass, and Afro-Cuban percussion in a double album of adventurous collective improvisation, blending graphic scores, structured compositions, free jazz, and layered rhythmic exploration into an expansive dialogue between form and spontaneity.

Smith, Sonelius / Adam Kahan: We'll Let You Know When We Find Out [VINYL] (577 Records)

A deeply personal collaboration between pianist Sonelius Smith and bassist Adam Kahan, bringing together recordings from 2023-2026 that move between intimate jazz trio explorations and expanded ensembles with tenor saxophone, trumpet, and flute, combining original compositions and spontaneous improvisation with inventive interpretations of jazz standards by Wayne Shorter, George Gershwin, and Sidney Bechet.

Taylor, Cecil Unit: Live at the KiMo Theatre Albuquerque 1979 [VINYL 2 LPs] (Black Editions Archives)

An extraordinary 1979 recording of Cecil Taylor's Unit performing live with Jimmy Lyons on alto saxophone, Ramsey Ameen on violin, Alan Silva on bass and cello, and Jerome Cooper on drums, capturing a rare quintet configuration in a powerful exploration of free jazz, collective improv, and expansive compositional structures, previously unissued and originally intended for NPR's Jazz Alive program.

Squidco Publishing Roundup:

You can view our latest fully cataloged albums in the Recently Section.

You can also browse new titles as they enter our Just In Stock Section — meaning we physically have the album and can ship it, though we may still be updating additional information about the release.

To see restocks of previously listed titles, visit our Recently Restocked page.

And if you're interested in a future release, you can ask us to notify you by email via our Upcoming Releases page — no obligation necessary.

October 22, 2026: New @ Squidco:
Casserley/Marzan/Van Schouwburg/Wachsmann - Being [CD] (Bead)
Gebhard Ullmann (w/ Steve Swell/Joe Morris/Charles Downs) - Coffee And Berries [CD] (ESP Disk)
Gulf Of Berlin (Gschlossl/Ullmann/Leipnitz/...) - For Timothy [CD] (ESP-Disk)
Gottliche Skizzen (Delazer/Delius/Obleser) - Ringi Ringd Coint [CD] (ezz-thetics now)
Alan Niblock/Mark Wastell - Dancing With Dragonflies [CDR] (Confront)
Pierre Gerard/Bruno Duplant - Support Surface [CD] (Ftarri)
K. Lyle Curtis/Alex Cunningham - Quantum Nursery Rhymes Of The Divine Horseman [CD] (Storm Cellar)
Alex Cunningham - Axe [CASSETTE] (Storm Cellar)
Tungu/Henry Kaiser - The Unexplained [CD] (Klanggalerie)
Bonner Kramer/Thurston Moore - They Came Like Swallows: Seven Requiems for the Children of Gaza [CD] (Silver Current)