July 9, 2026:
After completing our Independence Day sale, we returned to form by adding a strong group of exceptional albums to the catalog. Listed below are some of my favorites, from the lyrical strength of Samuel Blaser's transatlantic quartet to the electroacoustic composition of Teddy Ryles & Alexander Cooper's latest TRAC album.
Of special note this week are the recently discovered recordings of Satoko Fujii's 2014 Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra. I was also deeply impressed with the latest release from Montreal-based GGRIL, joined here by DDK - Jacques Demierre on piano, Axel Dorner on trumpet, and Jonas Kocher on accordion. If you haven't heard GGRIL, they are an incredibly creative and impressive large improvising ensemble.
Tyshawn Sorey's remarkable double album Members... Don't! reimagines Max Roach's 1968 Atlantic album Members, Don't Git Weary. Roach's title track, written with and sung by Andy Bey, reflected the political and social tensions of its time. Sorey's version echoes that spirit through the powerful vocal work of Fay Victor, but it is not a strict cover; instead, it uses Roach's material as a guidepost for a new and emotionally expansive work.
I've also spent quite a bit of time with Henry Kaiser's new solo guitar album, a wonderfully distinctive recording with a quirky and exploratory nature, as Kaiser performs on acoustic guitar, electric guitar, harp guitar, and seven guitars on a table. Another guitar-centered album caught my attention this week: Sonic Waves, with guitarist Nils Wohlrabe, prepared pianist Karin Johansson, and double bassist Hasse Westling. The album bridges electroacoustic and acoustic instrumentation, including toy piano, to create beautiful environments of subtle motion and resonant detail.
 Blaser, Samuel Quartet: Rosina (Blaser Music)
Drawing on Italian folk melodies, family memory, and the legacy of Blaser's maternal grandmother, Resistance fighter Rosina Pierina Scarpioni, trombonist Samuel Blaser joins Russ Lossing on piano, Masa Kamaguchi on bass, and Billy Mintz on drums in a deeply personal quartet session of open spaces, raucous interplay, lyrical intimacy, and contemporary improvisation shaped by heritage, song, and identity.
 Le GGRIL + DDK: Diffraction (Tour de Bras / Circum-Disc)
Bringing together Swiss-German trio DDK — Jacques Demierre on piano, Axel Dorner on trumpet, and Jonas Kocher on accordion — with Quebec's large improvising ensemble Le GGRIL, this expansive collaboration uses the ensemble as living material for a collective work of juxtaposition, superposition, sonic individuality, and shared compositional energy across a broad electroacoustic terrain.
 Marcus, Michael Quartet (Marcus / Williams / Rodriguez / Mednard): Next Stop Down (ESP Disk)
Bringing Michael Marcus' reeds and tarogato into a quartet with pianist Rod Williams, bassist Ricky Rodriguez, and drummer Allan Mednard, this ESP-Disk release extends Marcus' post-bop and avant-jazz language through compositions shaped by funky Monk-like angles, tight rhythmic interplay, lyrical woodwind clarity, and the seasoned drive of players versed in blues, free jazz, and modern creative music.
 Kaiser, Henry: Gateway To Strangeness (solo guitar) (Metalanguage)
A limited artist-released solo guitar recording from Henry Kaiser on acoustic guitar, electric guitar, harp guitar, and seven guitars laid across a table, presenting concise to medium-length explorations of resonance, distortion, extended-string sonority, tabletop texture, and improvisational invention from one of creative music's most idiosyncratic and restless guitarists.
 Fujii, Satoko: Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra [2 CDs] (Libra)
A rediscovered 2014 live recording captures Satoko Fujii leading a specially assembled Bielefeld orchestra of professionals and young regional musicians through her monumental Shiki and works by Andreas Kaling, Natsuki Tamura, Luise Volkmann, and Fujii, blending conduction, written structure, collective improvisation, electronics, dual drums, and volatile large-ensemble energy.
 Downs, Charles Quartet (w / Paz / Saft / Morris): Inner (ESP Disk)
A long-overdue first sole-leader album from drummer Charles Downs, formerly Rashid Bakr, bringing his deep history with Cecil Taylor, Jemeel Moondoc, Other Dimensions in Music, and the New York avant-garde into a collective quartet with Hery Paz on saxophone, Jamie Saft on piano, and Joe Morris on bass for five improvisations of fire, lyricism, angular reflection, and seasoned rapport.
 Berman, Josh Trio: Everybody Else's Life, Too (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
Cornetist Josh Berman's trio with Jason Roebke on bass and Chris Corsano on drums brings Chicago's jazz lineage into sharp contemporary focus, balancing compact composition and expansive interaction through playful, adventurous music that draws on early jazz, AACM-rooted invention, melodic swing, textural abstraction, and volatile rhythmic exchange.
 TRAC (Teddy Ryles / Alexander Cooper): Heavy Nano Ream Aria [2 CDs] (Bu Lang Tribute Cake)
Extending their TRAC debut Cylinder Plus, Teddy Ryles and Alexander Cooper shape a 90-minute two-CD computer-music composition developed with custom source-filter modeling and cepstral-based transfer methods, transforming digital artifacts, modeled resonance, spectral detail, and unstable electronic textures into a long-form electro-acoustic study of timbre, residue, structure, and abstraction.
 Wohlrabe, Nils / Karin Johansson / Hasse Westling: Sonic Waves (OUTERDISK)
Drawing on drone, ambient sound, and free improvisation, guitarist/electronics player Nils Wohlrabe joins Karin Johansson on piano, prepared piano, and toy piano, with Hasse Westling on double bass, shaping electronically processed ocean waves, resonant strings, and acoustic depth into an unpredictable, atmospheric soundscape of pulsing motion, shifting timbre, and expansive, wave-like momentum.
We received a sales report this week from our payment processor that made clear the negative effect that taxation, customs duties, and cross-border fees have had on our sales to the UK and EU. Where we once saw 30% or more of our sales coming from those countries, our business is now overwhelmingly domestic, with 93% of recent sales coming from the United States alone.
For me, this is not simply about lost revenue. It is about the failure of governments on both sides of the Atlantic to recognize cultural exchange as something different from ordinary commercial trade. The music we sell is global by nature: musicians from different countries and cultures listening to one another, working together, and creating something new that benefits all of us. Recorded music has changed the world for more than a century, allowing traditions, ideas, and innovations to travel in ways that were previously impossible.
Of course, the internet has changed how music circulates. We can now hear music from much of the world instantly, and that access is extraordinary. But it does not replace the permanence of the album as a physical object: a document, an artwork, and a commitment to the music it contains.
We started our digital label partly in response to the growing difficulty of international shipping, especially as the cost of sending an album can now exceed the price of the album itself. But our love of physical media has not changed. Nor has our frustration with bureaucratic systems that demand payment at every border, regardless of the damage they do to small businesses, independent labels, musicians, and the listeners who care about this music.
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.
June 26, 2026:
A very hot week in the world as summer officially kicked in. I divided my time between new releases for our main retail and distribution service and our Squid Note Records digital label, while we also presented a full roster in our local Hooked on Sonics experimental sound series: five performances, including my own. Our newly installed air conditioning helped offset all that activity, giving us a chance to comfortably listen to a new set of albums on Relative Pitch, particularly the duo of Camila Nebbia & Chris Corsano and the unusual pairing of Greg Kelley & Yoona Kim; the excitingly energetic new Ballister album with bassist Luke Stewart; a beautifully subtle duo from Aaron Russell & Sandy Ewen on Sedimental; and four new cassette/download albums on TSSS Tapes, especially two from sonic explorer Jeph Jerman.
 Jerman, Jeph: For Alvin Kelly [CASSETTE + DOWNLOAD] (Tsss Tapes)
A three-part solo cassette from Jeph Jerman, transforming found sounds, object textures, and electroacoustic detail into a patient study of friction, resonance, space, and decay, with the title possibly alluding to Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly's 1920s flagpole-sitting endurance feats, suggesting suspended listening, precarious balance, and heightened attention to an exposed sonic environment.
 Jerman, Jeph / Ted Byrnes: Muir [CASSETTE + DOWNLOAD] (Tsss Tapes)
A tactile 12-part acoustic-object improvisation from Jeph Jerman and Ted Byrnes, using kalimba, snares, bells, broken cymbal, cans, concrete floor, pinecones, bowls, pot lids, water, hands and other found or homemade materials to build a restless sound world of rustle, scrape, metallic resonance, loose pulse and strange-beat movement, extending Jerman's found-sound practice through Byrnes' free percussion language.
 Russell, Aaron / Sandy Ewen: Dissectologists [CASSETTE + DOWNLOAD] (Sedimental)
Longtime collaborators Aaron Russell and Sandy Ewen reunite on guitar and electronics for four works recorded between 2019 and 2025, merging abstract guitar approaches through synthesized drones, processed sound, feedback, and warm hypnotic fields, their distinct palettes unfolding in deftly paced textures that balance intimacy, resonance, and exploratory electronic abrasion.
 Kelley, Greg / Yoona Kim : Distractions for Trumpet & Ajaeng (Relative Pitch)
Bringing together Greg Kelley's extended-technique trumpet with Yoona Kim's non-traditional approach to the ajaeng, this Boston duo explores breath, bow, friction, resonance, and near-silence through taut improvisations where fragile tones, coarse strings, microscopic air bursts, and sudden ruptures forge a focused, unpredictable shared language.
 Nebbia, Camila / Chris Corsano: Six or Seven Ways Towards Becoming Undone (Relative Pitch)
A fierce, spontaneous duo of Camila Nebbia on tenor saxophone and Chris Corsano on drums, recorded in Berlin in 2025, merging Nebbia's searching lines, breath-driven textures and unstable lyricism with Corsano's explosive, highly detailed percussion language, moving between delicate abrasion, surging intensity, fragmented melody and raw improvised exchange.
 Ballister + Luke Stewart: Clocking the Wheel (Aerophonic)
Joining Dave Rempis on saxophones, Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello, and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums with bassist Luke Stewart, this live Ballister performance from Roulette expands the trio's ferocious long-running rapport into a dense, high-velocity quartet, Stewart locking with Nilssen-Love in elastic propulsion as cello and saxophone surge through explosive, telepathic collective improvisation.
Joe Chambers, In Full Motion:
I had the great and unexpected honor of meeting Joe Chambers here in Wilmington, NC, while he was a professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. A towering figure in jazz since the Blue Note era, Chambers continues to perform and record, his latest being Onilu: Jakuta's Dance on the 577 label, not surprisingly run by drummer Federico Ughi. The album is a percussion quartet with Chambers joined by Kevin Diehl on sensory percussion drum kit, Craig McIver on marimba, vibraphone, drum kit and percussion, and Daniel Villarreal on drum kit, sensory percussion system, bata okonkolo, conga, cajon, marimba and percussion. An inventive set of compositions brings out engaging work from all four musicians, with Jakuta's Dance offering a striking example of Chambers' playing at 83 years of age.
A search on Chambers' name in our database finds five albums featuring him, all reissues of essential '60s recordings on Impulse! and Blue Note, where he appears as a sideman to Archie Shepp, Andrew Hill, Alan Shorter, and Joe Henderson. It's an incredible CV for a percussionist still expressing himself with such virtuosic creativity.
 Onilu (Chambers / Diehl / McIver / Villarreal: Jakuta's Dance (577 Records)
A boundary-defying percussion quartet with the legendary Joe Chambers on vibraphone, drum kit and percussion, Kevin Diehl on sensory percussion drum kit, Craig McIver on marimba, vibraphone, drum kit and percussion, and Daniel Villarreal on drum kit, sensory percussion, bata okonkolo, conga, cajon and marimba, drawing on Yoruba-rooted ritual energy, avant-jazz, Latin folk and funk.
 Henderson, Joe: The Classic 1960s Albums [4 CD BOX SET] (Enlightenment)
Bringing together seven landmark 1960s sessions, this 4-CD set captures Joe Henderson at the height of his early career, leading stellar ensembles through a compelling range of post-bop expression, from hard-driving grooves to exploratory improvisation, showcasing his commanding tone, compositional strength, and enduring influence on modern jazz.
 Shepp, Archie: Four For Trane To Live At Newport - Revisited (ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
Influenced by and working with John Coltrane, saxophonist and composer Archie Shepp paid tribute to 'Trane with his 1965 Impulse! album Four for Trane, here remastered and joined with tracks from the live album John Coltrane/Archie Shepp: New Thing At Newport, accompanied on each by acclaimed free jazz players including Roswell Rudd, John Tchicai, Reggie Workman, Barre Phillips, Joe Chambers, &c.
 Hill, Andrew: Point Of Departure To Compulsion!!!!! (ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
Remastering pianist Andrew Hill's distinct and exemplary albums issued on Blue Note Records in 1965 & 1967: Point of Departure, illustrating Hill's complex and exciting compositions in a front line with Eric Dolphy, Joe Henderson, Kenny Dorham and Tony Williams & Richard Davis; and the percussively rich Compulsion with John Gilmore, Freddie Hubbard, Cecil McBee, & Joe Chambers.
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Pierre Favre:
Steve Swell / Ellen Christi:
Ava Mendoza / Dave Sewelson:
Szilard Mezei Octet:
Lao Dan and Vasco Trilla:
Last Dream of the Morning (John Butcher / John Edwards / Mark Sanders):
Tore Elgaroy and Henry Kaiser:
Daniel Carter / Steve Hirsh:
Steve Beresford / Pierpaolo Martino / Mark Sanders:
Melaine Dalibert / David Sylvian:
Sorey, Tyshawn (w / O'Farrill / Shim / Korten / Allen II / Victor): Members... Don't! [2 CDs] (Pi Recordings)
