The edges of electroacoustic improviser and composer Thanos Chrysakis' shards are sharpened by the quartet of Dawid Frydryk on trumpet & electronics, Edward Lucas on trombone, Sue Lynch on flute & tenor saxophone and Adrian Northover on soprano saxophone, as Chryaskis generates evocative sonic environments over which the four horns mysteriously interact.

Portuguese tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado's Motion Trio with cellist Miguel Mira and drummer Gabriel Ferrandini in his bands 7th full album, recorded live at the 2019 Vilnius Jazz Festival in Lithuania performing with special guest, pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, for an extended improvisation of masterfully evolving changes and dynamics.

Four double basses and a tuba, recorded in an arc to elucidate the sound of each instrumentalist, in Serbian improviser and composer Szilárd Mezei's deep-rooted Tubass Quintet, Mezei taking one of the double bass roles in place of his typical viola & violin work, as his compositions bring the deep instruments into both foundational and melodic territory.

Late Japanese free jazz trumpeter and flute player Itaru Oki--one of the significant and early free jazz players in Japan in the 1970s, moving to France in the mid-70s to seek more opportunities to play--recorded this concert at Jazz Spot Combon as part of his farewell tour, performing with winds player Yoshiaki Fujikawa, bassist Keiki Midorikawa ad drummer Hozumi Tanaka.

Three reed & wind players and a drummer from Japanese saxophonist Mototeru Takagi's collective free improvising quartet with fellow saxophonist Susumu Kongo, Nao Takeuchi on tenor sax plus flute & bass clarinet, and drummer Shota Koyama, recorded live in 1999 at Little John in Yokohama, Japan for three well-paced conversations of weaving winds and rhythmic intervention.

The first two tracks of this album reissue & remaster the 1971 self-released album by the German free jazz band Total Music Association of Hans-Jorg Hussong on (saxophones), Wilfried Eichorn (clarinet & sax), Andreas Boje (trombone), Erich Schroder (viola), Helmut Zimmer (piano), Matthias Boje (double bass) and Rudi Theilmann (drums), along with a 1988 studio session.

During the early 80s saxophonist and wind improviser Sam Rivers formed his quartet around electric instruments, with the core rhythm section of drummer Steve Ellington and electric bass guitarist Rael Wesley Grant, the other lead instrument on guitar during that time, sometimes with Kevin Eubanks, and on this previously unreleased, superb live performance in Florence, Italy, guitarist Jerry Byrd.

Five major works in a Creation Series concept from pianist Joel Futterman, each disc presenting from 2 to 4 parts in an ambitious and accomplished set of solo improvisations that start simply with monophonics and evolve into increasingly complex and inspired works of incredible creative control; a masterful release reflecting a lifetime of innovation and inventiveness.

Meeting at GOK Sound studio in Kichijoji, Japan in front of a small audience, Swedish baritone saxophonist Mats Gustafsson (The Thing, Fire!) also performing on flutephone and live electronics, and Otomo Yoshihide (Ground-Zero, Regenorchester) performing on guitar, turntable and banjo, recorded these eight amazing improvisations of unusual and unique attitudes and timing.

String player Antonio Bertoni (Leo Records, Astral Sprits) in his solo Ongon project seeks to bring back the shamanic elements of Moroccan Gnawa Music, particularly using the trance-inducing bass instrument guimbri, his hypnotic and exotic music set into a rich weaving of electronics, samples and concrete synthesis built ad hoc by Bertoni himself.

Antonio Bertoni's solo Ongon project, trying to remove the mistreatment that the Moroccan Gnawa Music suffers due to the heavy western productions, as he performs on the trance-inducing bass instrument guimbri, his hypnotic and exotic music set into a rich weaving of electronics, samples and concrete synthesis built ad hoc by Bertoni himself; reference Natural Information Society.

An unflinching look at life in post-Reconstruction America, commemorating the anniversary of Nancy Cunard's 1934 collection of African-American writings, poems, and song lyrics titled Negro: An Anthology, from Elliott Sharp's Terraplane, with vocalists Tracie Morris, Eric Mingus, Mikel Banks, and instrumentalist including Sharp, Dave Hofstra, recordings from Hubert Sumlin, &c.

Five compositions from Yoon-Ji Lee, whose work employs unconventional and nonlinear structures that focus on quick transformations of language, noise, texture, and tonal color, here with five works, one performed by JACK Quartet & Mivos Quaret, a work for solo Saenghwang, a solo piano work, a string quartet, and a mixed chamber ensemble.

The Berlin-based trio of guitarist Beat Keller performing on feedbacker electric guitar & acoustic guitar, innovative tuba improviser Jack Adler-McKean and Spanish vocalist & performance artist Lorena Izquierdo Aparicio take on their monsters in five unique and disturbing improvisations recorded in the studio, as they "dance on the fine line between terror and joy".

A 4-disc box-set with a 44-page booklet of extensive notes, presenting John Cage's Number Pieces which he wrote in the last five years of his life, adapted for mid-size ensembles and performed by the London-based ensemble Apartment House, compositions 'Five' to 'Fourteen' along with alternative versions of three of the pieces; significant and essential.

Adhering to the tenets of "Dissonance, Speed, Aggression, Weirdness, and Singularity", Weasel Walter leads his Flying Luttenbachers in their 15th album of no wave, punk jazz & brutal prog, Weasel switching to guitar and yielding the drum chair to Sam Ospovat, as the band rips through ridiculously complex twists and turns, even taking on Albert Ayler's strange '66/'67 musical suites.

An album of perceptive free improvisation recorded live at London's Cafe OTO from the quartet of John Butcher on tenor & soprano saxophones, Dominic Lash on double bass, John Russell on guitar and Mark Sanders on drums & percussion, three "discerning" and one "discerned" dialogs of discriminating sophistication that only four such masterful and experienced musicians can convey.

Canadian saxophonist Yves Charuest and London-based violist Benedict Taylor found common ground in their first meetings in London in 2017, improvising together and performing at Mopomoso, Charuest then inviting Taylor to Montreal in the winter of 2019 for duo performances, leading to this excellent album of confidently fragile interaction and agile attention.

Composer Dominic Lash's Consort ensemble explores the possibilities of combining sustained-tone music, guided & free improvisation, and the relationship between acoustic and amplified sound, heard in this evolving, extended concert at Café Oto on Lash's 40th birthday, in a unique mix of acoustic & electronic instruments that even includes an amplified kitchen sink!

Adhering to the tenets of "Dissonance, Speed, Aggression, Weirdness, and Singularity", Weasel Walter leads his Flying Luttenbachers in their 15th album of no wave, punk jazz & brutal prog, Weasel switching to guitar and yielding the drum chair to Sam Ospovat, as the band rips through ridiculously complex twists and turns, even taking on Albert Ayler's strange '66/'67 musical suites.

A stunning sound collage made from recorded fragments of Fujii's studio piano, captured inside and out using traditional piano sonorities and preparations that often microscopically detail the instrument, then edited into two electroacoustic compositions of startling and unexpected expansiveness and wonder; a unique and fascinating release in Fujii's large oeuvre.

Slippery confluence to taut string friction in the duo of Argentinian cellist & improviser Violeta Garcia and Quebec cellist Emilie Girard-Charest, both bringing impressive improvisational resumes and classical grounding to their uniquely informed dialogs, heard in a five part album exploring a remarkable range of technical skill and expression.

Honing their conversation in their third release as a band, British double bassist Dominic Lash's Quartet with Javier Carmona on drums & percussion, Ricardo Tejero on alto saxophone and Alex Ward on electric guitar are heard live at Cafe OTO in London, Lash providing all compositions and arrangements over six wide-ranging, edgy and innovative improvisations; outstanding!

Using feedback matrices, oscillator banks and multi-processing, NYC sound and feedback artist David Lee Myers, A.K.A. Arcane Device, references the quote from metaphysics scholar Frithjof Schuon--"You must detach your life from an awareness of the multiple and reduce it to a geometrical point before God"--which he manifests in four focused works of rich, slowly evolving sound.

Requested to organize a Japanese tour focused on the electroacoustic aspects of Evan Parker's work, the saxophonist distilled his larger Electracoustic Ensemble to the quartet of himself, Paul Lytton on percussion & live electronics, Joel Ryan on computer and Lawrence Casserley on signal processing, heard here in the resonant space of the Iwaki City Art Museum in Fukushima.

Beautiful long-form drones and harmonic interactions develop and are then shaken up with sonic deformations and collisions, returning to beautiful environments and then reversed once again, from the duo of sonic explorers Bob Bellerue and Christian Ronn, recording in Copenhagen using organs, electronics, winds, and feedback to create these wonderfully alien domains.

Assembled in London to improvise music for Stewart Morgan's film Eddie Prevost's Blood, this release adds much more material beyond the soundtrack, in a superb example of free and charged creative improvisation seeking unique combinations of expression, from Jennifer Allum on violin, John Butcher on saxophones, Ute Kanngiesser on cello and Eddie Prevost on percussion.

Extending his series of experimental works for solo double bass, NYC-based Nat Baldwin's 3rd "AUTONOMIA" release merges new music with noise in concentrated approaches through positioning the bass in unusual orientations to access the strings from below; using multiple bows, one prepared and one in agressive motion; and exploring the high harmonic range of the instrument.

Despite intentions of recording an aggressive set of improvisations in the style of their first album or their work with Martin Küchen and Illia Belorukov, when they got down to recording this Liquid album, the Phicus trio of Ferran Fages on electric guitar, Alex Reviriego on double bass and Vasco Trilla on drums found themselves in the richly contemplative mood of these two mysterious tracks.

Recorded primarily at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn and leveraging the natural resonance of that performance space, the New York trio of innovative improvisers Henry Frase on double bass, John McCowen on Bb and contrabass clarinets and Sam Weinberg on tenor & soprano saxophones explore the peripheries of their instruments in intense and reflective interplay.

Organized by Tatsuya Nakatani in Cambridge, Mass during his 2019 tour where he assembled a local group of improvisers each night, this quartet is a Boston-based electroacoustic supergroup, with Nakatani's cantankerous percussion driving Victoria Shen's electroacoustic whines and feedback, Jim Hobbs' ruminative sax explorations and trumpeter Forbes Graham's cathartic pinnacles.

The Pitch is the Berlin quartet of Boris Baltschun on JI organ &, sines, Koen Nutters on upright bass, Morten Joh on JI electric vibes & cassette tape delay and Michael Thieke on clarinet, performing at Karl-Marx-Strasse 28 as they break off into solos, duos and trios to create spaciously reflective electroacoustic music of indirect melodic warmth and development; gorgeous.

Spanish double bassist Alex Reviriego (Memoria Uno) in a solo album recorded by Ferran Fages in 2019, the second chapter of his "German Poets Trilogy" following his 2018 Blaue Tauben album, here inspired by the writings of Romanian-born poet Paul Celan in an intense and moving album of dense foreboding depicted through nine improvisations of heavy bowing, ruminative harmonics and dark friction.

Brought together by violinist Joanna Mattrey during the dark period of COVID lockdown, four NY free improvisers (Gabby Fluke on Mogul on violin, Matteo Liberatore on acoustic guitar, Joanna Mattrey on viola and Ava Mendoza on electric guitar) explore the implications of the pandemic through separation, loss and new life in 10 succinct and dynamic explorations.

After 16 years of collaboration this duo album between tenor saxophonist Travis Laplante and drummer/percussionist/electronic artist Jason Nazary was recorded in two sessions after the long break of pandemic lockdown, the enthusiasm of in-person playing showing through intimate and confident exchanges, building and weaving a textural landscape of informed dialogs.

Mist and mystery in pensive and meticulous improvisation from the Portuguese duo of trumpeter Luis Vicente and percussionist Vasco Trilla, their 2nd studio album after their 2019 Clean Feed release, exploring textures and timbres through extended techniques and detailed percussive interaction, as confident expressions rise and submerges in a wonderfully abstracted haze.

UK saxophonist Binker Golding (Binker & Moses) in a new trio with the powerful rhythm section of frequent collaborators, double bassist John Edwards and drummer Steve Noble, in a commanding album of free playing with titles referencing Coltrane, conveying a strong sense of both 60s and modern free playing throughout, propelled by tight and near-telepathic interaction.

The core of Chicago's Mako Sica--Brent Fuscaldo (electric bass, voice, harmonica & percussion) and Przemyslaw Krys Drazek (electric trumpet, electric guitar & mandolin)--join forces with Hamid Drake on drums & percussion, Tatsu Aoki on upright bass & shamisen and Cheer-Accident's Thymme Jones on keyboards, trumpet, balloon & voice for a warmly spiritual album.

In 2004, sound artist Jos Smolders released his Textures and Mobiles album on the CONV label; so taken by the sound, which is based on dtmf and ccitt tones generated by phones and pure sine waves, the Preliminary Saturation duo of Steffan de Turck and Wouter Jaspers created these three diverse edits and remixes of the album, one for a live performance at Smolder's 2006 birthday party.

Two large works of sound from frequent collaborators, Dutch sound artist and experimenter Steffan de Turck (aka Staplerfahrer) and Netherlands sonic innovator Wouter Jaspers, the first piece contrasting music-box synthetic melodies with deep drone and noise; the second a dark work of haunting properties that evolves to a spectral whisper of submerged voice.

From fractured and fragmented to assertively raw improvisation in the unusual pairing of saxophone and cello from Chris Pitsiokos on alto and Argentinian cellist Violeta Garcia, using intense approaches to their instruments in a reactive set of 11 concise dialogs, a well-matched meeting of innovative improvisers uniquely responding to and clearly enjoying an eccentric conversation.

Focusing intently on multiphonics and long-form statements on the saxophone, the second solo album from Canadian-American saxophonist based in New York City, Erin Rogers, is a tour-de-force of unusual language on the instrument, exploring every inch from the reeds to the pads in manners uniquely harrowing, ingenious, awe-filled, unorthodox, and always inspired.

GRM alumnus and collaborator with Pierre Schaeffer & Francois Bayle, French electroacoustic, acousmatic and musique concrete composer Beatriz Ferreyra is heard in five works from 40 years of compositions, astonishing pieces of embraceable, radical, strange and inspired sound, including the amazing "Mad Man's Song" and works dedicated to Bayle & Bernard Bashet.

Initiating like a jet shaking the sky, the trio of Kevin Corcoran on percussion & objects, Giacomo Salis on percussion, objects & field recordings and Paolo Sanna on percussion & objects create otherworldly sonic environments that project collapsing and ringing events above often turbulent foundations, creating side-long journeys that engage through mysterious and surmisable sound.

Recorded at Elektronmusikonstudion EMS, Stockholm and Studio W, Brussels between 2017 & 2019, Giovanni Di Domenico presents two extended compositions for solo piano and electronics, melodically evolving piano figures taking the foreground over unusual rhythmic and percussive interactions, building in complexity and releasing in exquisite ways.

A series of unusual improvisations between London free improvising trombonist Edward Lucas (Hyperion Ensemble, London Experimental Ensemble) and experimental sound artist, turntablist & percussionist Graham Dunning, merging acoustic sources with controlled feedback, objects and field recordings, pressed to dubplate to create these engagingly strange and concise dialogs.

Using small objects and contact microphones to create peacefully clacking, mewling and idiosyncratic utterances, sound artists Takamitsu Ohta and Anne-Francoise Jacques developed this installation shown in 2019 at the Bonjour! Gendaibunmei gallery in Kyoto, recorded by Jacques as a tour of the various sonic manifestations that a visitor to the gallery might experience.

The fourth release from the long-standing sonic research duo of Montreal sound artist Anne-F Jacques, who uses "rotating devices" based around small amplified motors, and Montreal ex-patriot living in Kobe, Japan Tim Olive (845 Audio), using magnetic pickups on objects and self-built instruments, here in six richly detailed and sometimes curiously menacing recordings.

...

Applying techniques similar to those of the prepared piano, Japanese experimental artist Kayu Nakada uses circuit bending--circuit boards from electronic instruments short circuited for new effects--joining forces with Japan-based Canadian electronic instrument maker Tim Olive (845 Audio) for four works of intriguingly interactive glitch, hum, static and sonic inexplicables.

Using handmade devices and contraptions including small motors and found objects, Montreal sound experimenter Anne-Francoise Jacquese amplifies her miniature devices to create unexpectedly large textures and rhythms, which she manipulates with great instinct to create fascinating sonic environments, heard here in four pieces recorded in Montreal and Sackville from 2018-19.

An extended electroacoustic composition from composer Phil Niblock based on recordings captured at Marcus Schmickler's Piethopraxis studio in Koln of bassoonist Dafne Vicente-Sandoval, layering her playing and using multiphonics to create beautifully rich textures that slowly evolve, shifting in hypnotic ways as the pieces arches and descends through harmonic interaction.

A fascinating work for free chamber music in feedback environments devised by sound artist Bob Bellerue and employing the talents of improvisers Brandon Lopez & Luke Stewart (double bass), Jessica Pavone (viola), Gabby Fluke-Mogul (violin) and Ed Bear (baritone sax), Bellerue performing on electronics, unattended instruments, feedback, suling gambuh, junk metal & cymbals.

A beautiful 228 page limited edition hardcover book chronicling the last decade of artwork by saxophonist Peter Brotzmann, created spontaneously while on the road or between tours using materials at hand; featuring essays by Brotzmann, Thomas Milroth, John Corbett, Markus Muller, Sotiris Kontos, Stephen O'Malley, Heather Leigh and Karl Lippegaus.

Two European Free Improvisation legends--Prussian clarinetist Rudiger Carl and Swedish drummer Sven-Ake Johansson--join with younger double bassist Joel Grip (Umlaut Records) for three improvised "Inflections" performed live at Au Topsi Pohl in Berlin, superb examples of the historical depth of free jazz across Europe and the continuing energy each new generation brings.

Two early free jazz masterpieces from 1964 never released in their day, from Danish pianist Tom Prehn and his Kvartet with Poul Ehlers on bass, Fritz Krogh on tenor saxophone and featuring drummer Finn Slumstrup, the close mic recording bring their swinging and enthusiastic music to the foreground in an adventurous album that absolutely demands to be heard!

Beginning with an 8-member vocal incantation led by Taylor himself, this incredible reunion concert between pianist Cecil Taylor and drummer Sunny Murray was recorded by the FMP label in 1996 at the Total Music Meeting in Podewil, Berlin, an incredible display of pyrotechnical playing with an exultant excitement through three "sector" improvisations; extraordinary!

The first live album from the CP Unit led by alto saxophonist Chris Pitsiokos and his quartet with Sam Lisabeth on electric guitar, Henry Fraser on electric bass and Jason Nazary on drums & electronics, captured live at the 2018 Moers Festival in Germany in 8 compositions drawn from previous studio tracks and two new pieces; thrilling and brilliant modern jazz!

Taking an angular approach to modern jazz that reminds of Steve Coleman/Five Elements, New York alto saxophonist Chris Pitsiokos provides the compositions for the six improvisations on this live album recorded at Seizure's Palace, in Brooklyn in a quartet with Andrew Smiley on electric guitar, Henry Fraser on electric bass and Jason Nazary on drums.