Two works from Canadian composer Linda Catlin Smith and performed by cellist Anton Lukoszevieze and pianist Kerry Yong: "Through the Low Hills" a piece for constrained variations like an object viewed from different angles as it is turned over; and "Ballad" a major work intended for performance that unfolds slowly, allowing for delicate melodic interaction.

Swedish contrabass clarinetist Christ Bothen in six extended works, the first and third disks a series of solo works using incredible technique and concentration, the 2nd disc a large work in an ensemble with fellow deep reedists Hans Koch & Per Texas Johansson, double bassist Vilhelm Bromander, pianists Kristine Scholz & Tisha Mukarji, and a spectral narrative from Sofia Jernberg.

A double CD of the complete Cecil Taylor Ensemble's 1990 performance at Junges Theater in Gottingen, Sweden, with personnel similar to his 1989 Cecil Taylor Workshop Ensemble album Legba Crossing, here in an adventurous concert of large group improvisation with Taylor performing on piano while directing and conducting the extended orchestration that includes balafon & elephanthorn!

A powerful and effusive jazz rocking and danceable album of instrumentals and songs from the Italian/International J & F Band of drummer Tiziano Tononi, bassist Joe Fonda, plus guitarists David Grissom, Bobby Lee Rodgers & Scott Sharrard, keyboardist Pee Wee Durante, violinist Emanuele Parrini and saxophonist Jon Irabagon, recording in New Haven, CT; get it on!

Following their first record with this powerful blues rock & jazz album, the Italian/US J & F Band of Tiziano Tononi (drums), Joe Fonda (bass), drummer/percussionist Jaimoe and Pach, Peewee Durante (keys), Alberto Mandarini (trumpet), Beppe Caruso (trombone) and Gianluigi Paganelli (tuba), with guest guitarist David Grissom and vocalist Lamar Williams Jr.

A truly diverse set of improvisations, from solo work to large scale ensemble, as Euphorium_Freakestra are joined by European Free Jazz legends, drummer Baby Sommer and double bassist Barry Guy, in a band with leader & pianist Oliver Schwerdt, plus Bertrand Denzler, Burkard Beins, John Eckhardt, Pierre-Antoine Badaroux, Patrick Schanze, Daniel Beilschmidt & Freidrich Kettlitz.

An algorithmic composition for Elliott Sharp's Orchestra Carbon modeled on biological paradigms of growth and reproduction, recorded at Tonic in 2001 with a large ensemble of instrumentalists including Ned Rothenberg, Steve Swell, Jim Pugliese, Andy Laster, &c. and programmers and sampler performers including David Weinstein, R. Luke Dubois, and Zeena Parkins.

An early EUPHORIUM_freakestra performance recording at naTo, in Leipzig, Germany, in 2002 and 2003, in an 11-piece electroacoustic band that includes electric guitar, a full brass and horn front end, synth, electric bass, drummers including Gunter Baby Sommer and a percussionist, in a great blend of funky electronics and powerful free improvisation.

In many ways a prelude to the EUPHORIUM_freakestra to come, this double album of Oliver Schwerdt's open-minded ea-improv big band was recorded in Eisenach, Germany in 2000, in Bellers, Germany in 2001 and finally in Leipzig in 2001 & 2002; despite the vastly different band configuration the concepts of the Freakestra are clear in these spectacular recordings.

RESTOCKED: Fred Frith's 1999 box set, presenting a large, flexible ensemble project using marked photographs and rules as scores while Frith directs and conducts as well as performing; permanent members are Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins, otherwise the balance of the 44 strong ensemble changes; recordings here are taken from 5 concerts, including the first in 1992 at AngelicA.

In various configurations of her ensemble--from trios to 12 performers--composer, saxophonist & flutist Anna Weber composed these six pieces based around specific wind techniques, including the use of multiphonics, alternate fingerings, buzzes, air sounds, key clicks & overblown notes, explored through an exuberant and embraceable balance of improvised and composed "Idioms".

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.

A magnificent triple-CD set from the Quebec creative ensemble GGRIL performing the works of Frederic Blondy, Robert Marcel Lepage, Lisa Cay Miller, Malcolm Goldstein, Caroline Kraabel, Allison Cameron, Martin Arnold, Lori Freedman, Michel F. Cote, Jean Derome and Gus Garside, a significant and beautifully packaged release from one of Canada's most important new music groups.

Rare and newly discovered works from jazz composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams performed by the Umlaut Big Band in their series of portraits of forgotten jazz artist, here taking a broad look at the prodigious career of this essential and gifted pianist, composer & arranger, whose influence on swing and early be-bop deserves this fitting and inclusive overview.

Active since 2013, David Sanford's powerful 20-piece big band based in New York City presents six Sanford originals, along with an effusive arrangement of Dizzy Gillespie's bop composition "Dizzy Atmosphere", the focal point of the album a large and spiritual work composed by trumpeter Hugh Ragin dedicated to and inspired by late trumpeter Lester Bowie.

The Indiana collective Crazy Doberman in a 15-performer configuration including core members Tim Gick and Drew Davis, merging jazz and indescribable approaches to free improvisation with a mix of acoustic & electronic instruments, building their pieces from mysteriously cantankerous rumination to ecstatic grooves and much in-between.

Collecting facets of London trumpeter Charlotte Keeffe's diverse settings and interests, including three live recordings with her own quartet, three recordings with London Improvisers Orchestra including a conduction for a piece dedicated to Steve Beresford, a duo with guitarist Diego Sampieri, and two solo recordings, one interacting with live electronics.

A fun and lyrical jazz album that references a host of culture and style, performed in collaborations with the NAD core of keyboardist and "soundmaster" Nicola C. Salerno and guitarist Roberto Zorzi and artists including the ROVA Saxophone Quartet, presenting original compositions and eclectic covers from Ornette Coleman, Chocolat, and even Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive"!

Without bowing to genre restrictions, Gabriel Zucker's indie jazz orchestra The Delegation combines free jazz, chamber forms, avant song structures and experimental layering & transitions, as his large work in four sections of three movements each, explores time and the competing impulses of a backwards-looking nostalgia and a forwards-looking futurist belief in progress; innovative & stunning!

Three expansive and stunning performances at Centro Cultural de Vila Flor as part of the Guimaraes Jazz 2020 festival by drummer and percussionist Pedro Melo Alves' expanded 23-piece Omniae Ensemble directed by Pedro Carneiro, adding electronics, voice and a diverse orchestration that gives his band both power but also flexibility to express an astonishing array of moods.

Conceived by saxophonist Kirstoffer Berre Alberts and Lasse Marhaug, who composed this large acoustic work for strings, percussion, blowing instruments, pipes (organ and accordion) and vocals, soliciting solo recordings created in isolation during the pandemic which they layered and blocked in the studio to create these two remarkable works of eccentric timbre, motion & pitch.

L.U.M.E., aka the Lisbon Underground Music Ensemble directed by pianist Marco Barroso, is a big band with a chamber ensemble feeling, Barroso's upbeat and melodically sophisticated compositions driving the band by borrowing from a variety of jazz, funk and even cartoon-like styles to create a richly complex and compelling set of tunes that twist, turn and surprise.

Exploring how a composition can provide a sense of weightlessness, and influenced by the music of gamelan, krautrock, Tony Conrad & Arnold Dreyblatt, composer Alex Zethson structured these works to influence the 13 performers in his ensemble into a state of intense focus and listening as they strike, bow and pluck their instruments, creating an ecstatic sense of infinite motion.

Two major works of evolving acoustic soundscape from Swiss violinist & composer Patricia Bosshard realized by the 27-member Orchestra des Nouvelles Creations, which includes Bosshard, Stephane Rives, Bertrand Denzler, &c.; "Sillon" employs a percussive pulse over 27 independently transforming grooves; "Reflets" a harmonic composition for bowed strings, including three double basses.

With core members Drew Davis, Tim Gick, and John Olsen (Wolf Eyes), the wonderfully eclectic ensemble on each Crazy Doberman album shifts as they introduce musicians who can express the experimental improv structures required for each project, blurring genres and using whatever tools necessary to move from abstract to high intensity motion; a sublimely eccentric big band.

Post-pandemic, the electroacoustic IKB ensemble returned to the stage in 2021 at O'Culto da Ajuda in Lisbon with some of Portugal's finest improvisers performing under the direction of violist Ernetso Rodrigues, to express in sound the large rainforest beetle Titanus Giganteus, represented in an extended collective improvisation of restraint fueled by masterful and creative skill.

[Bonus Edition] Bay Area experimental music scene legend and multi-disciplinary artist Barabara Golden celebrates her 80th birthday presents works created between 1980-2020, including performances by Robert Ashley, Maggi Payne, Chris Brown, WIGband with Johanna Poethig, George Lewis, William Winant, Mary Oliver and texts by Melody Sumner Carnahan.

Bay Area experimental music scene legend and multi-disciplinary artist Barabara Golden celebrates her 80th birthday presents works created between 1980-2020, including performances by Robert Ashley, Maggi Payne, Chris Brown, WIGband with Johanna Poethig, George Lewis, William Winant, Mary Oliver and texts by Melody Sumner Carnahan.

Eight chamber works of interestingly structured and exquisitely restrained character, composed between 2016 and 2021 by UK composer Georgia Rodgers, performed by the Apartment House ensemble in configurations of acoustic duos, trios & quartets, one solo piece for piano & electronics, one solo work for electronics and the title piece in 3 parts by a quintet.

Three distinct compositions from the collaborative work of sound artists Vanessa Rossetto and Lionel Marchetti, the first a wonderfully complex work of musique concrète and acousmatic sources guided by the composers' instincts; "The Tower" expands their concepts through the addition of 18 voices, while the final track features the violin of Anouck Genthon.

This 1995 double CD presents the London Jazz Composer's Orchestra 1987 performances at Rote Fabrik, in Zurich, Switzerland and at the 1988 Taktlos-Festival, in a large ensemble that included Barre Philips, Dave Holland, Paul Lytton, Tony Oxley, Howard Riley, Evan Parker, Paul Dunmall, Trevor Watts, Paul Rutherford, Radu Malfatti, Jon Corbett, Phillip Wachsmann, &c.

As part of NY composer, guitarist, bassist, saxophonist and electroacoustic artist Elliott Sharp's 70th birthday observation he performed a series of concerts under the moniker "E#@70", initiating the series with this remarkable concert at Roulette, premiering 4 new works performed by his SysOrk ensemble, dedicated to performing Sharp's algorithmic scores, graphic notation and conductions.

Two large scale choral compositions recorded at New York City's Park Avenue Armory and at South London Gallery: ""Teenage Lontano" re-envisions composer Gyorgy Ligeti's 1960s orchestral work, using an immersive sound environment and the collective voices of an ensemble of teenagers; in "roygbiv&b" a teen ensemble in London riff off of mis-hearings of the acronym "ROYGBIV".

A diverse set of works from Australian composer Cat Hope, employing acoustic instrumentation--strings, keys, flutes, reeds & percussion--along with electronics and field recordings, in chamber configurations from duos to quintets, performed by the Western Australia Decibel new music ensemble for which Hope is both director and a performer.

The French Lunar Error Ensemble employ acoustic and electric instruments including reeds, piano, percussion, electric guitars, synth & computers to create complex drone and sonic environments, here performing Jean-Luc Guionnet's work for micro-variations and harmonic interference, a slowly building and massive work recorded in the resonance of the Protestant temple, in Reims.

In 2019, the Ensemble Studio Dan commissioned Downtown New York composer and pianist Anthony Coleman for a new work, fluctuating in fascinating ways between contemporary music and jazz forms, premiered at the Saalfelden Jazz Festival and also presented in Vienna at the Jeunesse Special 2019, live at Porgy and Bess, from which this album was superbly recorded.

A chamber music piece for two harmonicas and an ensemble of strings, brass and drums, written by Austrian composer Christian F. Schiller, originally premiered at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York in 2017 by the Austrian new music ensemble Studio Dan directed by Daniel Riegler, who perform the work again in the studio in Vienna in 2019 for this album release.

Originally commissioned by Music Traditions Inc. for the Paul Dresher Ensemble and premiered at Z Space in San Francisco in 2012, this adaptation of three numbered works by composer, improviser & multi-instrumentalist Fred Frith was part of Studio Dan's homage to Frank Zappa, written using strong rhythmic structuresÊand melodies associated with Frith's voice as a composer.

Based on the improvisations and sounds generated by soprano/sopranino saxophone player Michel Doneda, composer and Studio Dan director Daniel Riegler developed this work, at the intersection of Doneda's radical tonal language and Riegler's idiosyncratic music, performed live at Stanica Zilina in Slovakia in 2012 with an ensemble including Doneda himself.

Composer and pianist Magnus Granberg developed this delicately introspective work as a collaboration between his Skogen ensemble and cellist Leo Svensson Sander & harpist Stina Hellberg Agback, concerning the development of art in times of crisis, using Messiaen's "Quatuor pour la fin de temps" (Quartet for the End of Time) as a basis, and brought into focus by actual pandemic.

Four works from Amsterdam-based Argentina composer Gabriel Paiuk, particularly "The Construction of an Imaginary Acoustic Space" about the intertwining of technology, affect, space and listening, performed by the New European Ensemble in a mix of strings, reed, brass, piano and tape; also a solo work for cello; a solo work for piano; and a piece for three clarinets.

An unusual conglomerate of styles across 2 CDs from bassist Moppa Elliott, featuring three bands: Advancing on a Wild Pitch, his jazz band with Danny Fox, Christian Coleman, Sam Kulik & Charles Evans; Unspeakable Garbage, his rock band with Jon Irabagon and Nick Millevoi; and the 9-piece "dance" band Acceleration Due To Gravity with Nate Wooley, Ava Mendoza, Mike Pride, &c.

A 9-horn section from the Leap of Faith Orchestra performing an expansive improvisation of thoughtful and melodic interaction augmented with the Evil Clown arsenal of percussive instruments, from David Peck on clarinets, sax & winds, Jared Holiday on sax & bass clarinet, David WelansÊ& Dennis LIvingston on flutes, Elwood Epps & Bob Moores on trumpet and Duane Reed on horns & trombone.

The second collaboration between the Swedish chamber rock band Isildurs Bane led by keyboardist and composer Mats Johansson and lyricist, vocalist and guitarist Peter Hammill (Van Der Graaf Generator) presents two new multi-part suites with lyrics by Hammill--"In Disequilibrium" and "Gently (Step by Step)"--detailed, astute and powerful works of sophisticated progressive rock.

Three works from English composer Christopher Fox performed by the five-member Ensemble SEV, with two renderings of his work "This is the Wind" along with three duos, each combining two of a set of six "Paralogos", a solo work for violin--"Planes and Folds"--and the title piece "Hieroglyph" about decoding the incomprehensibility of unfamiliar music.

The Little Village Foundation run by keyboardist Jim Pugh assembled this band through Indian blues harmonica player & singer Aki Kumar, who brought drummer June Core and guitarist Rome Yamilov, deciding to make the release a "crazy guitar album" by adding Henry Kaiser; along with vocalist Lisa Leuschnet they hit the mark in an exuberantly diverse set of blues performing the music of J.B. Lenoir.

Composer, pianist and band leader Manuel Valera presents his second album with New York-based New Cuban Express Big Band, a large ensemble performing Valera's compositions that fuse the music of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Brazil to forge innovative sounds and textures, leaving room for outstanding solos from vocalists and instrumentalists.

An idiosyncratic and wonderfully wild improvisational music theater group revolving around composer & cellist Tristan Honsinger, using spoken word and song through eclectic and active free improvisation including strings, reeds, trumpet, toy piano, tap dance, bass & drums, a truly unique and joyfully quirky album that fulfills Honsinger's goal of uniting music, theater & poetry.

A double album of experimental works and songs, virtual meetings curated by composer Dante Boon, recorded in the performer's individual cities as ensembles formed from musicians who have never met, including the Moscow duo The Same Ensemble of Sasha Elina and Kirill Shirokov, Amsterdamn's Seamus Cater's Tree Space, Berlin's Konzert Minimal, and sound artist Gabi Losoncy.

Led by Univers Zero bassist and composer Guy Seger, the third album from Eclectic Maybe Band combines elements of rock, jazz, electronic and abstract landscapes, performed by an ensemble of chamber rock players including Discus label leader Martin Archer, varying groupings within the band focusing on each section in a mix of composed and improvised approaches.

Exploring how a composition can provide a sense of weightlessness, and influenced by the music of gamelan, krautrock, Tony Conrad & Arnold Dreyblatt, composer Alex Zethson structured these works to influence the 13 performers in his ensemble into a state of intense focus and listening as they strike, bow and pluck their instruments, creating an ecstatic sense of infinite motion.

"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...

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.

"The Hard Rubber Orchestra is a funkier incarnation of the NOW Orchestra. Led by trumpeter John Korsrud, it uses a similar pool of Vancouver musicians, although the instrumentation here focuses on brass and a rhythm section. Cruel Yet Fa...

"The quality of an album roughly depends on material for 75 percent; the other 25 percent is pacing. Rub Harder scores a hundred. The Hard Rubber Orchestra's first CD (Cruel Yet Fair, 1998) suffered from improper inclusions, a lack of fo...

"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...

"... 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

"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...

14 musicians from 9 different countries in various collaborative groupings performing acoustic & electronic free improvisations, the focus on soundscape and limited to 15 minute performances, developed by saxophonist Harri Sjöström in 2013 as "SoundScapes Festivals" and presented in Helsinki and now in Munich as part of the art-project "Aspects of Free Improvisation 2021".

A profound contemporary work integrating improvisation into composed forms from Montreal composer and percussionist Isaiah Ceccarelli and performed by an ensemble of 16 Musique Actuelle improvisers and performers, beautifully balanced between diverse instrumental passages and texts inspired by different poetical and musical forms of the past; sublime.

Ensemble Supermusique, Montreal's premiere open-minded improvising ensemble, here led by saxophonist & vocalist Joane Hetu and conducted by percussionist Danielle Palardy Roger, present a live concert of graphic scores dating back to 1920, with works from Fred Frith (Stone, Brick, Glass, Wood, Wire), Luigi Russolo, Maxime Daigneault, Emilie Girard-Charest & Anestis Logothetis.

Four compositions written between 2000-2019 from Joane Hétu: a duo between bassist Nicolas Caloia & bass clarinetist/vocalist Lori Freedman; a work with Hétu & Jean Derome plus the Quaturo Bozzini string and Quasar saxophone quartets; a composition for 20 electric guitars; and one movement from "Préoccupant, c'est Préoccupant performed by Ensemble Supermusique.

The collective ensemble Supermusique featuring key performers from Montréal's musique actuelle scene, including Jean Derome, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Joane Hetu, Danielle Palardy, &c. perform "Sounding the Image", three animated scores composed through the creation of moving images and rendered live in a remarkable concert at Amphiteatre de Gesu, in Montreal in 2019.

Reissuing two albums showing trumpeter Don Cherry's musical evolution through the 1960s, recorded two years apart--Where is Brooklyn from NY in 1966, and Eternal Rhythm recorded in Germany in 1968--demonstrating the development of his style from Ornette-influenced free jazz into music influenced by Northern Indian music and the percussion of Southeast Asia.

Saxophonist and composer Crowmeat Bob's ensemble, Judge Schreber's Avian Choir, is a project name he's used to present his large ensemble pieces involving composition, improvisation, and conduction, here in a conducted collaboration with 15 bowed string players, a heavy metal rhythm section and Bob's own overdubs on reeds and guitar.

Recorded during the 2002 studio sessions that yielded the albums A Short Visit to Nowhere and Broken English, this unreleased recording of a Mars Williams composition is issued as a 1-sided LP with the stellar lineup of Brötzmann with Williams, Ken Vandermark, Jeb Bishop, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Kent Kessler, Michael Zerang, Hamid Drake, Mats Gustafsson and Joe McPhee.

The project and ensemble "Songs" brings together Swiss trombonist & composer Samuel Blaser and pianist & composer Oscar Strasnoy, taking the instrumentation and concept of Lucio Berio's Folksongs and expanding it into Blaser's "Worksongs", a set of songs around Mississippi Delta blues, and Strasnoy's "Chanzuns Popularas Rumanchas" based on the traditional music of the Canton of Grisons.

An excellent example of modern fusion as drummer G. Calvin Weston (Ornette Coleman, James Blood Ulmer), also on pocket trumpet, joins the Phoenix Orchestra, a Philadelphia-based string & electric octet, for a funk driven album of spectacular playing with melodic force and compelling rhythm, showing shades of Cobham or Mahavishnu but with its feet fully in the present.

A truly wild concert of free jazz from Cecil Taylor's transatlantic orchestra, captured live at the 1984 Jazz Jamboree in Warsaw, Poland, bringing together impressive improvisers from the US--William Parker, John Tchicai, Jimmy Lyons, Karen Borca, Frank Wright, & Henry Martinez--with European Free Jazz leaders Tomasz Stank, Enrico Rava, Conrd Bauer & Günter Hampel.

The debut of Ensemble Nist-Nah, a nine-piece collective group of French percussionists led by Nantes-based Australian drummer and percussionist Will Guthrie, incorporating a diverse set of influences including Gamelan performance, contemporary composition, noise and jazz into rich and ecstatic performances, an exciting album of informed approaches to modern and traditional percussion.

Led by tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis and poet Thomas Sayers Ellis, this 12-piece ensemble of pointed and ecstatic free jazz and spoken word are heard at the 2019 Sons D'Hiver Festival in Paris, 2019, their sound influenced by chamber elements and sharpened through insightful and demanding observations and the influence of Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones).

"HumaNoise Tutti is an opportunity to hear Rodrigues in a large group that's not of his own devising-though there is often such complex and varied activity here, it would be misleading to evaluate it in the context of any one individual...

IKB, a ten-piece reductionist electroacoustic ensemble of strings, reeds, guitar, computer, percussion, piano, drums & objects, continues their exploration of exotic animal species with this 2020 live performance at O'Culto da Ajuda in Lisbon, Portugal, detailing the long-billed shore bird Limosa through intricate, restrained and remarkable expression.

Portugal's IKB Ensemble is an electracoustic improvising ensemble with a strong string and wind section, balanced with electric guitar, electronics, and percussion, each album focusing on an object--an art work, Dracaena Draco (Dragon Tree), Chelonoidis Nigra (Giant Tortoise)--and here taking on the Ornithorhynchus Anatinus, or platypus, in 3 fascinating movements.

Recorded at CreativeFest#12 in Lisbon at O'Culto de Ajuda, the 21-piece electroacoustic ensemble Isotope takes on the chemical element Radium in a gripping piece of evolving improvisation, intensely restrained and extremely detailed, orchestrated with cello, baroque violin, double bass, acoustic & electric guitars, zither, psaltery, winds, brass, keys, electronics and percussion.

NY jazz vocalist Kosi (Akosua Gyebi) in her 4th solo album which she describes as a "concept album telling the story of guilt, absolution, love and self-actualization through original jazz and negro spirituals." through original songs and covers including Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".

Boston area composer and multi-instrumentalist David Peck developed a unique approach to scoring for this large and idiosyncratic ensemble, referred to as Frame Notation, giving descriptions of sonority, time scale, events, playing occurrences, &c, leaving a great deal of freedom for these extraordinary musicians, as borne out in their incredible and extended performance.

A live performance at Forward Festival 2016, in Brooklyn, NY, merging chamber music, free improvisation, free and avant jazz and other forms in a an ensemble with Daniel Carter (sax & trumpet), Claire de Brunner (bassoon), Patrick Holmes (clarinet), Nick Lyons (sax), Jeff Snyder (electronics), Stelios Mihas (guitar), Jonah Rosenberg (piano), Zach Swanson (bass), and Federico Ughi (drums).

French-Japanese violist Frantz Loriot's large ensemble drawn from 5 nations in an excellent set of compositions that employ a diverse set of approaches, slyly drawing the listener into unique and encompassing sound worlds of remarkable elements and superb improvisation.

UK improvising saxophonist Rachel Musson incorporates spoken word text and daring instrumental experimentation in a large work for an 8-piece ensemble of bass, sax, and strings, with narration in a through-composed text written by Musson that explores the process of improvisation, and her reflections on the experiential process of making music.

The Berlin-based electroacoustic Red List Ensemble founded by cellist Guilherme Rodrigues in a studio recording of the 3-part "Scope", improvised music created in real time using extensive techniques to create and raise tension in a game of contrasts, exploring orchestration in micro-groups through organization of surfaces that are opposed in terms of timbre and sound texture.

American composer Dean Rosenthal's influential performance piece written in 2012 and performed more than 40 times throughout the world, a site-specific piece for any outside body of water with any number of performers, using stones to create percussive sounds in the water, here in five live performances from Newfoundland to New York to Wilbraham, MA (the composer's hometown).

Writer Iain Sinclair joins The London Experimental Ensemble to perform his narrative work, a sequel to Living With Buildings: And Walking With Ghosts, telling a surreal story of the imaginary 25-year journey of a whalebone box, told in detailed images and incredible sonic support through keys, strings, brass, winds, guitar, electronics and voice; profoundly powerful.

This supergroup of strings--16 musicians on violins, viola, cellos, double basses, piano, psaltery, zither, and guitar--in an intensely restrained collective improvisation recorded live at O'Culto da Ajuda, Lisbon, Portugal in 2017, as String Theory's 4th album continues their title themes from the physical universe named here for the rare metalloid "Tellurium".

The third album on Creative Sources for this 10-piece ensemble with 5 string players, piano, sax, trombone, electronics and percussion, freely improvising in an extended work themed for the Greek theological, philosophical, and scientific term typically translated as nature or physics, in a rich tapestry of meticulous detail and profoundly subtle communication.