Performing together since 2004 between Tokyo and Amsterdam, Dutch vocal improviser, innovator and electronicist Jaap Blonk meets Japanese vocal improviser and fellow electronics artist Tomomi Adachi at Lettretage in Berlin in 2017, recording this, the 5th in Kontrans' Electronic Improvisation, for two extended and energetic dialogs of unique creative interplay.

An album of patience and concentrated listening from the lowercase trio of David Area on electronics, Tomas Gris on guitar and objects, and Ernesto Rodrigues on harp and objects, each player subtly coaxing sounds out of their instruments while the electronics act as environmental ambience over which tones slowly voice, recede and occasionally punctuate.

A one-take improvisation recorded in Berlin by trumpeter Tom Arthurs, caught on New Year's Day 2018 using piccolo trumpet, mutes and binaural field recordings, intended for headphone listening, as he provides an incredible sense of location while stimulating his listener with subtle interventions that ultimately act as a backdrop for his distinctive and sly soloing.

Confirming their place in Chicago's improv legacy, the second album from the Artifacts Trio of Nicole Mitchell on flute & electronics, Tomeka Reid on cello and Mike Reed on drums & percussion expand the AACM canon with compositions from each member, plus several insightful and lively collective improvisations and one piece each from Roscoe Mitchell and Muhal Richard Abrams.

Confirming their place in Chicago's improv legacy, the second album from the Artifacts Trio of Nicole Mitchell on flute & electronics, Tomeka Reid on cello and Mike Reed on drums & percussion expand the AACM canon with compositions from each member, plus several insightful and lively collective improvisations and one piece each from Roscoe Mitchell and Muhal Richard Abrams.

Crossing Netherland and New York players, Ab Baars on reeds, Ig Henneman on viola, Ingrid Laubrcok on sax and Tom Rainey on drums present an album of insightful improv that borrows approaches to sound from natural world, performed live at Tampere Jazz Happening, Finland in 2014.

Bassist Babin's Benzene band mixes free improvisation with rock overtones, tight changes giving way to excellent solos from all members of this exceptional quartet.

Electronic artist Nathaniel Bartlett (marimba, computer) is joined by Geoffrey Brady (percussion) and Nils Bultmann (viola) for a physical and temporal sound experience.

Borrowing from Elvin Jones' concepts, drummer Bianco's band uses 2 saxophones (Mike Fletcher and Mark Hanslip), bass (Colin Somervell) and drums, for energetic and ecstatic jazz compositions creating a continual pulse with long lines and looped synchronicity.

A contrasting album of beauty and sonic exploration from Texas native, NY bassist Tom Blancarte, fueled by quotes from Frank Herbert and Ran Prieur, an unusual and creative album using extended and imaginative techniques from one of NY's finest bassists.

Young Italian artist Piero Bittolo Bon (saxophones) with his new band, the Original Pigneto Stompers (Massaron, Sorrentini, Scettri) and special guest Jamaaladeen Tacuma (electric bass) in a powerful improvised session.

Two monster proponents of noise esthetics, representing two continents whose cultures have often been described as incompatible, meet in the celebration of noise.

1991 collaboration between Shaking Ray Levis and Borbetomagus in an exquisite mix of over-amplified and otherwise bewilderingly fierce free improv.

The meeting of the extreme jazz trio Borbetomagus and the electroacoustic trio Voicetrack for an album of radical textures, timbres, colors, and tone fields.

Extreme blasts of improvisation from the dual saxophones of Jim Sauter & Don Dietrich, and guitarist Donald Miller, performing live at Pezner in France, 1998.

The first feature documentary of the Borbetomagus free improvising noise trio of Don Dietrich, Jim Sauter and Donald Miller, alongside a live concert at Instants Chavires, Montreuil in 2009; documentary interviews and footage include Byron Coley, drummer Chris Corsano, guitarist Thurston Moore, Japanese noise unit Hijokaidan, and Switzerland's Voice Crack.

The Borbetomagus trio of Jim Sauter (sax), Don Dietrich (reeds) and Donald Miller (guitar) in a 1982 release on their own Agaric label, high volume jazz compiled from concerts in 1979 and 1981.

Savage noise jazz in a rare 7" from the early 90s by the trio of saxophonists Don Dietrich and Jim Sauter and electric guitarist Donald Miller, two live version of "Coelacanth" recorded a year apart.

Borbetomagus's screaming 1986 live recording from Allentown, PA, revived from its cassette only obscurity, adding the entire second set, never previously released.

The unique voice of the Borbetomagus quartet recording in NYC in 1987, dark and beautiful improvisation that takes freedom to a unique level of squealing skronky feverish overtones and exhilaration.

Long awaited reissue of this 1998 LP, originally of live performances at ABC No Rio in NYC and now expanded to include live performances at DC Space in Washington, DC.

Three performances from London and Glasgow from New York saxophonists Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich, and guitarist Donald Miller, playing through pedals and distortion devices in unique and irascible free improvisations.

Live recordings from Instants Chavires in Montreuil, France as the final concert of the Borbetomagus 2009 tour, a blistering 46 minute improvisation celebrating 30 years of this groundbreaking noise jazz trio's work.

The first Borbetomagus, an unprecedented release of extreme free/punk improvisation and sound from the trio of Jim Sauter (reeds), Don Dietrich (reeds) and Donald Miller (guitar).

1999 recordings from the trio of cornetist Bobby Bradford, Tuba player Tom Heasley and guitarist Ken Rosser, bridging chamber and free jazz with a unique orchestration.

Rob Burke composed the first seven pieces for this experimental NY quartet, the multi-reedist joined by guitarist Ben Monder, drummer Tom Rainey, and Ben Grayson on electronics, the last "Discordat" a collective improvisation in 4 parts, as the band investigates emotional approaches to playing, using subtle distortion and Grayson's post-editing sonic additions.

Swiss prepared spinet player Christoph Schiller and Argentine guitarist-composer Tomás Cabado, whose work is found on the Wandelweiser label, met in Schiller's studio in Basel to perform compositions from both and to improvise, recording this wonderfully relaxed but compelling music that exists in the fertile grey area between composition and improvisation.

An harmonically rich album of spacious guitar interaction from two Argentinian guitarists and composers--Catriel Nievas and Tomas Cabado--who also work in the trio Merce / Cabado / Nievas, a minimal yet satisfying set of 8 pieces that interact through stereo positioning, harmonic disturbance and long decay, the effect mesmerizing and beautifully peaceful.

The core trio of Cécile Cappozzo (piano), Patrice Grente (double bass) and Etienne Ziemniak (drums) release their second Ayler album, expanded to a quintet with Jean-Luc Cappozzo on trumpet and Guillaume Bellanger on saxophone, performing six works connected like a suite that flow beautifully through Cappozzo's warm compositions, including a piece dedicated to Carla Bley.

Two basses and a lower-end saxophone from the trio of Damon Smith on double bass, Andrew Durham on electric bass, and Danny Kamins on baritone sax, Durham also adding effects and "Radio Manipulation" to their deep sound, Durham & Kamins the core of CARL with Damon Smith adding extra underpinnings to their slowly developing, sometimes pensive, sometimes cantankerous, profound improvisation.

A burning album of collective free jazz from Canadian compatriots Francois Carrier on alto saxophone and Michel Lambert on drums, on a spring tour of Europe, performing at Poland's MOZG in Byrgoszcz, home of the MOZG Festival, with Polish tenor saxophonist Tomek Gadecki amd bassist Marcin Bozen, also on French Horn, in an exhilarating set of three extended improvisations.

Recorded in concert at The Network Theatre, Waterloo in London, 2012, the trio of Tom Chant on saxophone, John Edwards on bass and Eddie Prevost on drums present a tour de force of modern free jazz with great technical and conversational power.

Four generations of Chicago saxophonists--Dave Rempis, Ken Vandermark, Mars Williams, and Nick Mazzarella--come together in an interactive saxophone quartet with each player providing 2 compositions of well-developed, powerful, engaging free and lyrical jazz.

Essential performers on the 80s Downtown NY scene, cellist Tom Cora and percussionist & vocalist David Moss released this album in 1983 on Fred Frith's Rift label, ten active and often absurd duo improvisation of informed interaction, intertwining strings, drums, odd rhythmic sources and strange vocal utterances, yielding to both serious improv and whimsical notions.

Few musicians better represent the Downtown NY scene's early years than late cellist Tom Cora, a key player who performed and recorded with John Zorn, Fred Frith, Polly Bradfield, Samm Bennett, &c, &c, bridging and blurring the lines between jazz, improv, rock, and compositional music, heard here in an exuberant and masterful solo set live at Vancouver's The Western Front in 1986.

Two nights at the famed Village Vanguard from pianist Kris Davis' quintet with Terri Lyne Carrington on drums, Val Jeanty on turntables & electronics, Julian Lage on electric guitar and Trevor Dunn on basses; a thoroughly modern electric jazz group performing Davis originals, with references to Eric Dolphy, Conlon Nancarrow, Olivier Messiaen, Paul Bley, Sun Ra and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Using analog computers that "require a lot of real-time intervention to flesh out their neurotic narratives", the typically trumpeter Tom Djll (Grosse Abfahrt) turns his attention to a series of prickly sound works of strange intention and direction, through fourteen works titled like a series of math equations mashed into a dictionary; good weird fun.

Michel Doneda continues to extend the sonic capabilities of the soprano sax and, in the process, confirms his position as one of the most important and exciting performers of improvised music.

An exhilarating departure from saxophonist Paul Dunmall's Coltrane-esque approach to free improvisation with this electrified quintet of Steven Saunders on guitar, Richard Foote on trombone, James Owston on bass and Jim Bashford on drums, playing with upbeat urgency through a set of Dunmall compositions, often letting Saunder's riffs take the foreground around a first-rate set of solos.

A fascinating trio of West Coast sonic explorers exploring the isopleth, the zone of seawater that receives enough sunlight for photosynthesis to occur, from improvising trumpeter Tom Djll employing electronics with his horn, Bryan Day on invented instruments, and Cheryl Leonard using natural objects including driftwood, feathers, marsh reeds, penguin bones, &c.

NYC trumpeter Peter Evans and bassist Tom Blancarte play very experimental improvisation pushing the boundries, density and speed of free improv interaction.

FEN (Far East Network) is comprised of improvisers from Singapore (Yuen Chee Wai), Japan (Otomo Yoshihide), China (Yan Jun), and Korea (Ryu Hankil), using electroacoustic instrumentation to create a unique merging of cultural and personal aesthetic, in their 1st album recorded in NYC using electronic feedback, computer noises and guitar; intriguing and unconventional.

Electricity and metal trash object meet in a banging and sparking session of minimal improvisation from percussionist Elisabeth Flunger and electronic artist Tomas Tello.

Frith's 75 minute intense improvisatory journey work is a graphic structural model by which the most diverse types of musical events are linked together along a time line.

Expanding their instruments into sonic sculpture, this first meeting between acclaimed Japanese improvisers Satoko Fujii, performing inside and out of the piano, and electric guitarist Otomo Yoshihide, demonstrates their incredible compatibly as heard in these live recordings at Tokyo's Pit Inn, part of an annual festival organized by Fujii & trumpeter Natsuki Tamura.

"March" refers to the foundation of repurposed march rhythms NY drummer Tomas Fujiwara employs for the compositions in his second release with his Triple Double sextet, actually two trumpet-guitar-drum trios brilliantly interacting, with fellow drummer Gerald Cleaver, both Mary Halvorson & Brandon Seabrook on guitar and Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet & Ralph Alessi on trumpet.