English experimental composer and musical performer John White recorded the pieces on this 2 CD retrospective set between 1980 and 1995, a combination of serious, popular and novelty pieces, often exploring areas of contradiction, particularly linear and rhythmic, within an unlikely sound-world in which parameters such as volume, timbre, texture and speed remain fixed.

Saxophonist Sabir Mateen's NY based Shapes, Textures, and Sound Ensemble with Steve Swell on trombone, Matt Lavelle on trumpet, Matthew Heyner on bass and Michael T.A. Thompson on drums, run though a gamut of post-bop and collective, creative jazz forms with energy, incredible dexterity, and tremendous group interplay, a great example of the modern spirit of jazz.

Saxophonist Herve Perez and double bassist Gus Garside spent much of the pandemic lockdown recording these intimate duos, interpretations of a 13th Century Poem, "The Guest House" by Rumi, recording in their respective homes using software designed for real-time audio collaboration, as they developed this introspective set of dialogs with strong lyrical affinity between the two.

Emphasizing unusual aspects of the pipe organ, composer and typically reedist Jean-Luc Guionnet (Hubbub, Return of the New Thing) performs solo on the organ at the Church of the Decollation of Saint-Jean Baptiste in L'Isle-verte, Quebec, Canada, taking a sound-oriented approach to the instrument with a minimalist attitude through four extended performances.

Though not well documented, free jazz legendary pianist Cecil Taylor's working band for 3 years in the late nineties was this quintet of Harri Sjostrom on soprano saxophone, Tristan Honsinger on cello, Teppo Hauta-aho on double bass, and Paul Lovens on drums, cymbals & gongs, heard in this energetic concert at Tampere Jazz Happening in Finland, 2018.

Bringing together two essential and impeccably remastered 1960's Cecil Taylor albums — Cecil Taylor Unit Structures and Cecil Taylor Unit Mixed — presenting both traditional influences and Taylor's unique approaches to modern jazz, featuring two septets with musicians including Jimmy Lyons, Henry Grimes, Archies Shepp, Ted Curson, Andrew Cyrille, Roswell Rudd, Sunny Murray, &c.

A split LP between two GRM associates: Florian Hecker in a work of computer-generated sound with resynthesized situated texture recordings, drawing on the history of computer synthesis; and cellist Okkyung Lee in an overture of cello multiplications, fragmentations, and duplications creating incredible tension in interacting layers of sound.

Meeting in France in 2017 for the Festival Météo de Mulhouse, Evan Parker alternating between soprano and tenor saxophones and Matthew Shipp on acoustic piano, present an epic extended improvisation that naturally evolves through several sections, followed by a brief post-script, each musician attentively focused as they support the clarity of each other's playing.

Taken from the personal archives of UK drummer/percussionist Tony Oxley, this extremely well recorded duo session with frequent collaborator, iconoclastic NY pianist Cecil Taylor, are heard in a live performance at the Ulrichsberg Festival, Austria in 2002 for a brilliantly frenetic and masterfully controlled, creative set of two jaw-dropping extended dialogs.

Initiated by West Coast drummer John Hanrahan, A Love Supreme Electric examines John Coltrane's A Love Supreme and Meditations album, asking to merge the two as one spiritual ecstatic piece of music, as performed on this 2 CD set with Vinny Golia on sax, Bob Moses on percussion, Henry Kaiser on guitar, Mike Watt on bass and Wayne Peet on organ; profound and powerful!

Pianist Carlo Morena leads this lyrical and energetic piano trio with bassist Joe Fonda and drummer FŽlix Lecaros Herrera, performing 6 Morena compositions and one piece by Emil Boyd, recording at the Firehouse 12 studio in Connecticut for the 3rd album under the Step In name, and the first with drummer Herrera; upbeat but never cloying, a very compelling album.

Three heavy "Concept" pieces of electric jazz from the quartet of Lisbon saxophonist José Lencastre, electric bassist Felipe Zenicola (from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), drummer João Valinho and Jorge Nuno, a guitarist generally associated with psychedelic rock, as the band slowly seethes through a brew that flirts with rock and 70s fusion in unique ways.

A fascinating 2-CD retrospective of the solo piano and computer work from 1990 to 2016 of San Francisco Bay Area experimental composer Chris Brown, whose work focuses on evolving paradigms of human-machine interaction through live signal processing, generative polyrhythmic textures, and a cohabitation of both formal control and indeterminacy.

The Earshots duo of Daniel Kordik on modular synthesizer and Edward Lucas on trombone reprise their meeting a year earlier with free improvising percussionist and AMM legend Eddie Prévost, drawn by the natural resonance of the All Saints Church in Essex, England, recording these electroacoustic improvisations of astonishing sonic properties and astounding technique.

Part of the Iklectic club's "Meetings With Remarkable Saxophonists" programmed by drummer Eddie Prévost and double bassist Guillaume Viltard, here meeting John Butcher performing on tenor and soprano saxophone for a masterful concert of free improvisations, energetically turning the "Electric", "Light", "On", "Click" through 4 extended and remarkable converstations.

The long-established Snakeoil quartet led by New York saxophonist Tim Berne, with Matt Mitchell on piano, Oscar Noriega on bass and B-flat clarinet, and Ches Smith on drums & percussion, are heard live in three settings over two CDs — at Firehouse 12 in 2017; at IBEAM in New York in 2010; and at Roulette in NY in 2009 — showing the band's evolution of expressive power.

Inspired by molecular biology, saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis developed a unique system of composing, creating a surprising and beautiful music for the debut of his new quartet with drummer Chad Taylor, pianist Aruán Ortiz, and bassist Brad Jones, bringing lyricism and joyful playing to his sophisticated approach to the jazz tradition.

A graceful and beautiful set of 21 improvisations composed by German pianist and European Free Improv legend Alexander von Schlippenbach for Japanese pianist and von Schlippenbach's spouse Aki Takase, emphasizing a lyrical and passionate deceleration of his profound technical skills to ring lyrically and even romantically as he expresses Takase's musical portrait.

Working in the Elektronisches Studio, in Basel, Switzerland, the duo of electronic artist and guitarist Volker Böhm and drummer/percussionist Benjamin Brodbeck, also employing sonic objects of indeterminate source, create a fascinating set of 9 sonic compositions driven by rhythmic interaction, using space and focused recording techniques in superbly timed dialogs.

Essential radio and live recordings from saxophonist Albert Ayler's European tour in 1964 with Don Cherry on cornet, Gary Peacock on double bass and Sunny Murray on drums, a quintessential grouping for Ayler's compositions, here in outstanding renditions of classic works including "Spirits", "Ghosts", "Vibrations", "Mothers", "Childrens", plus Don Cherry's "Infant Happiness".

A well-recorded studio session from 1976 of pianist, composer and community educator Horace Tapscott with his Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, a large and ecstatic ensemble with superb soloing; previously unissued, this is a major addition to Tapscott's catalog, and includes a 12 page color booklet with detailed information about the band, personnel and the recording.

Two sets of profound composure and restraint, captured at a concert in Munich in May 2019 by Berlin improvising instrumentalists -- Werner Dafeldecker (double bass) and Lucio Capece (bass clarinet, slide saxophone, feedback and room amplification) -- invoking moods of Polwechsel through focused structures of intense precision of dense interaction.

Three quartet improvisations and six duo combinations between Dan Clucas on cornet, Jeb Bishop on trombone, Damon Smith on double bass, and Matt Crane on drums, recording in the studio in Rhode Island, 2018, the various permutations of each player elucidating the full group interactions through focused and captivating investigations of instrumental combinations.

Vibraphonist Chris Dingman set up his vibraphones next to the bedroom where his father was under hospice care from a rare heart ailment, setting an atmosphere of calm and compassion to help soothe, heal, and carry him through his final challenges, released here as a 5-CD set of 5 hours of ethereal sounds through poignant melodies, swirling textures, and undulating pedal tones.

The follow-up to NY drummer/composer Dan Weiss's 2018 release Starebaby is an unconventional compounding of electric jazz, doom metal, electronic music, and improvisation, performed with Matt Mitchell on piano & Prophet 6, Craig Taborn on piano, Fender Rhodes & synthesizers, Ben Monder on guitars, and Trevor Dunn on electric bass.

A selection of Machinefabriek's (Rutger Zuydervelt) favorite remixes made between 2005 and 2015 of his reworks and reinterpretations of tracks by Mensenkinderen, Wouter Van Veldhoven, Fieldhead, Aaron Martin, Coppice, de la mancha, The Moi Non Plus, Djivan Gasparyan, Amon Tobin, Gareth Hardwick, Fiium Shaarrk, Vladimir and Red Stars Over Tokyo.

Two unique and adventurous takes on collective free improvisation led by Paul Dunmall and recorded in the studio, using the group that appears on his first Paul Dunmall Presents series in January 2020: Dunmall on tenor sax, John O'Gallagher on alto sax, Percy Pursglove on trumpet, Elliott Sansom on piano, Chris Mapp on electric bass and Miles Levin on drums.

Compatriots in bands over many years, the quintet of David Liebman on saxophones, Randy Brecker on trumpets, Marc Copland on piano, Drew Gress on bass and Joey Baron on drums, joined by trumpeter Ralph Alessi on 2 tracks, come together to bring joyfully lyrical enthusiasm and masterful skill to works by Liebman, Gress, Baron, Brecker, and Ellington.

The Thumbscrew trio of NY improvisers Tomas Fujiwara on drums & vibes, Mary Halvorson on guitar, and Michael Formanek on double bass, turn their focus to their shared history with composer and reedist Anthony Braxton as he celebrates his 75th birthday, performing 11 previously unheard compositions selected from Composition No. 14 through No. 274; masterful and profound.

Belgian composer Pierre Gerard presents a work that examines what we see around us, and what sometimes remains invisible, in three dramatic minimal works of powerful tones and tension, silence and motion: the first is 'the mechanics', the second 'the structure of a rock on a high mountain', the third 'the distance between the elements in a small forest area'.

The second of two volumes in celebration of legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker's 100th birthday, here remastering his landmark recordings for the Savoy label in New York City between 1945-48, performing with jazz greats including Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Lewis, Curley Russel, Max Roach, &c. for some of be-bop's finest and best known compositions.

The first of two volumes in celebration of legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker's 100th birthday, here remastering his landmark recordings for the Dial label on the US West Coast between 1946-47, performing with jazz greats including Miles Davis, Lucky Thompson, Erroll Garner, Barney Kessel, Red Calender, JJ Johson, Max Roach, &c. for some of Parker's best known and essential compositions.

Using the interference points of closely pitched sound, long-time collaborators Xavier Charles and Bertrand Gauguet use acoustic and amplified clarinets and saxophones to create frequency landscapes that change slowly, ringing with harmonics while finding unison and conflict in their tones, creating meditative aural environments of great beauty and reflection.

Recording at the Lilypad in Cambridge, MA, the Boston-area trio of pianist Pandelis Karayorgis, bassist Damon Smith, and drummer Eric Rosenthal are captured in concert for an adventurous album of free improvisation, Karayorgis's compositions leading this piano trio of magnificent mastery into buoyantly exciting interaction as they take their listeners to a dizzying precipice edge.

Four chamber pieces for strings, covering 5 decades of work by veteran German composer Ernstalbrecht Stiebler--each with his representative focus on concentration and quiet intensity--recorded in Bulgaria and performed by violinist Biliana Voutchkova, to whom two of the pieces are dedicated, with Michael Rauter (cello) and Nurit Stark (viola).

Performing in the intimacy of the Birdland Jazz Club in 2011, New York innovative pianist Cecil Taylor met with London free jazz legendary percussionist and long-time associate in The Feel Trio, Tony Oxley, Taylor's rapid often percussive approach to the keys pairing with Oxley's percussive work, and both invoking lyrical beauty from the other.

A Slovokian experimental group with rock roots and a somewhat DaDa approach to unusual song forms using perplexing repetitions and interventions, led by guitarist and vocalist Roman Radkovič with Josef Novák on keyboard, Jiří Šíla on accordion, Zdeněk Řihošek on harmonica & double bass Zdeněk Caha on drums & voice, and Miloš Šandera on percussion.

With new drummer/percussionist Steve Niemitz, the Leap of Faith trio of PEK on clarinet, contrabass clarinet, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, musette, tarota, bass tromboon & sheng, Glynis Lomon on cello, aquasonic & voice, and Niemitz on percussion recorded this session at Bonnie Kane's monthly Thursday Night Experiment in Western Massachusetts.

Two discs of solo work from Boston-area reedist, composer and Evil Clown collective leader David Peck (PEK), the first CD with 3 tracks, each focusing on a unique instrument from David Peck's large arsenal, in this case the bass tromboon, a C flute and a contrabass clarinet; the second a large improvisation using a mix from the first recordings along with live signal processing.

Two solo installation works from Wandelweiser composer Jürg Frey--"Paysage d'échos" in Aarau, Switzerland, in 2009; and "Equilibre fragile" in in Aarau in 2014--plus Frey's "Streichtrio" performed by Angharad Davies (violin), Johnny Chang (viola) and Stefan Thut (cello); and a solo piano work, "Eyot", performed by Antonio Correa.

Rediscovered playing in NYC's Tompkins Square park in 2009, iconic saxophone player Giuseppi Logan enjoyed a second life in performing and recording up until his passing in 2020, heard here covering Coltrane, Ellington, and collective improvisation, in a quintet with Cooper-Moore (piano), Larry Roland (acoustic bass), Ed Pettersen (guitar) and Tracy Silverman (electric violin).

A wide range of approach and style in the debut duo recording from Alex Cunningham (violin) and Claire Rousay (percussion), a free affair of expressive and well-matched interaction, from effusively sophisticated rapport to pointillist dexterity and drive, from moments of intense introspection to cantankerous conversation, a fascinating and unpredictable dialog.

A tour de force saxophone duo between two masterful New York players--alto saxophonist Tim Berne and drummer Nasheet Waits--recording live at The Sultan Room in Brooklyn NY in 2019, in two impressive dialogs: "Tensile" for nearly 40 minutes of articulate expression and powerful rhythmic interaction; and the more introspective "5See" of impressive technique and intention.

Phill Niblock's "Baobob", a rich drone work on a massive scale, is realized by the German sound collective The Dorf (German for The Village) augmented as a 35-member orchestra, released in a 2-CD set alongside "Echoes", a compositions from Jan Klare in three parts recorded the same evening with the same large edition of The Dorf ensemble.

A dynamic 1st release from trumpeter Peter Evans' group Being and Becoming, featuring improvisers from a younger generation of creative musicians--Joel Ross on vibes, Nick Joziwak on bass, and Savannah Harris on drums--the album featuring new compositions from Evans, moving between notated chamber music textures, free improvisations, deep grooves and telepathic ensemble playing.

The third volume of this excellent German sound magazine and audio CD, 9 artists working in sound art, electroacoustic composition; a "listenable exhibition" of modern compositional approach.

Eric La Casa and Jean Luc Guionnet recorded this conceptual work in Melbourne, Australia, combining different scales of time, space, & attention, with different working strategies to create a gallery installation, and this book & DVD package exploring the acoustic phenomenon of "standing waves" to engage with the physical relationship between sound and space.

Roman philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus named "Clinamen" the unpredictable (in time and space) swerve of atoms falling in the void, which aptly describes the unexpected directions taken in subtle free improvisation from this French trio, led by bassist Louis-Michel Marion, with Jacques Di Donato on clarinet, and Philippe Berger on viola.