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LP
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ACTLP 8020LP
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"Forget the boxes. Forget the rules. Just play. Two of the most compelling voices in modern jazz -- trumpeter Theo Croker and pianist Sullivan Fortner -- come together for a fearless duo album that strips everything down to pure, in-the-moment expression. No rehearsals. No pre-written compositions. No expectations. Just two master improvisers in total conversation, creating music that's alive, unfiltered, and utterly free. This is raw, boundary-breaking jazz at its most honest."
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LP
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AGIT 073LP
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"Howdy punkè rocke fans, welcome to Forced Communal Existence -- the wonderful and frightening world of Alien Nosejob's EP's and singles. Anti Fade and Agitated Records are teaming together to bring you a paint stripping, mind altering, rare collection of EP and compilation tracks recorded in various Australian bedrooms and garages between 2017 and 2022. The sound of goofy obnoxiousness will soon be permeating your bedroom airwaves and perforating your eardrums. Kicking off this long player is an EP that was recorded by Billy from Anti Fade in his childhood bedroom in July 2017. The songs came to fruition while Ausmuteants were on tour in Japan 2016. There was a lot of 'Wallaby Beat / Murder Punk' being played in the background while seeing the sites of Mount Fuji and 'Bar Fuck Yeah'. In between shows Jake was organizing the release of Danny Graham and Plastic And The EPs records on the label he co-ran Xerox Music. Both artists played parts in the sound and ethos of the Panel Beat EP. The goal was to make the songs sound unapologetically Australian without pretending to be something they're not. 500 copies were pressed and self-released, with a photo slipped inside each copy at random. Next is The Death Of The Vinyl Boom, which was self-recorded in a shed in November 2017. This is the only Alien Nosejob release to feature a cover -- Flyblown by Adelaidean arty weirdo band Jackson Zumdish. The idea behind this EP was to incorporate the simplicity and scrappiness of the late-'70s DIY Australian sound, but give them the complicated structures of prog songs. Recorded September 2020 during lockdown in one-man-band with a tape recorder fashion for a 20 minute unedited 'live set' video where all instruments were played one by one, sung and mixed in the space of a couple of hours. The HC45 7" was recorded at the same time as a disco 12" maxi. This EP came out in Feb 2020 and sounds somewhere between early Gang Green, Die Kruezen and the Beastie Boys old bullshit. Finishing the record is a cover by The Aints. Originally written by Ed Keupper for The Saints' Eternally Yours album, but it sounded too similar to Lost and Found. Originally released on 'ALTA' cassette compilation during the lockdown."
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7"
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BEWITH 009-7
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Frank Maston's beloved 2025 single finally gets its long overdue vinyl release! "Foreign Affairs" drifts through London fog and Paris shimmer, its avant-lounge glow wrapping each melody in a wistful ache. On B-side "Liaison," ghostly strings and a solitary piano paint a deserted twilight shoreline, Pacôme Henry's distinct 16mm cinematography hovering nearby. Originally written for a film Maston was scoring in 2024, he decided to keep it aside for himself. The two songs were recorded in Paris and London in the summer of 2024. Aside from the rhythm section and piano, there's vibraphone, a full string section, trombones and alto and concert flutes. The artwork for this 7" single has Roman campaign flags, referencing the foreign affairs in sort of a sassy way.
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BLACK 001X-LP
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"Although The Black Dot/White Spot performance space in Nanaimo, BC has now passed into legend, The Black Dot label continues apace. To prove this we off¬er you The Twain, an extraordinary album helmed by BC-based string maestro Gordon Grdina, whose Square Peg combo's debut LP was The Black Dot's first release. This new project came about when Gordon encountered Michiyo Yagi's Trio, the Far out East-Improv Japan at the 2016 Jazztopad Festival in Poland. With Yagi on koto, Takahiro Honda on drums, and Koichi Makagami on vocals, the sound was beyond belief. Yagi and Honda regularly play as the duo DOJO, and their communication happens on a molecular level, giving their music a wild sense of freedom while maintaining clarity and forward-moving power. The vocals of Makagami (whose avant credentials stretch back as far as the Tokyo Kid Brothers) added an absolutely otherworldly element to the whole, as anyone who has seen him perform will surely attest to. Gordon was blown away, and knew he wanted to figure out a way to collaborate with this crew. Plans were laid, and eventually a session came together at Tokyo's GOK Studio in 2019. Three hour-long sets were recorded. One with Gord and DOJO, another with Gord and Koichi, and a final one with all four. These three hours were boiled down and edited into shorter segments. So what we have here is la creme de la creme. Things are blazing from the very start. Gord and Michiyo's work together the way Larry Coryell and Sonny Sharrock's did on the wilder parts of Memphis Underground. It's like a Vulcan Mind Meld style jam, conducted by the ghost of Jimi Hendrix. Honda's drums are tucked in there with a kind of free rock mass so huge it's hard to get your head around. And Koichi's vocals -- ranging from gibbered sound poetry to the peeps of twenty happy babies -- are akin to instructions being beamed in from alien galaxies. Taken together, these four musical voices all manage to remain distinct while at the same time conjoining for a kind of Fifth Mind synergy that will blow your mind for good." --Byron Coley
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DOT 001LP
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Originally released in 2020. "Gorgeous live debut LP by an extremely flexible quartet put together by Vancouver based string-monster, Gordon Grdina. Grdina plays both electric guitar and oud. His guitar work here recalls a couple of very different players -- the clean angular scramble of Boston's Joe Morris, and also the more lyrical passages played by the master of power-distortion, Sonny Sharrock. On oud (an instrument most often associated with traditional music of Northern African and Western Asia) he creates a new approach to the instrument, perhaps parallel to what Chicago's Joshua Abrams is doing with the guimbri. Grdina's fellow travelers in Square Peg are all similar in their multi-directional tactics. Players unafraid to go deep into uncharted territory, with wide discographies on which they play with legends and neophytes with equal power. Brooklyn-born violinist Mat Maneri has collaborated with everyone from Cecil Taylor to Robin Williamson, and is known for his totally open approach to both violin and viola. Maneri's playing here most often reminds me of '70s Leroy Jenkins, shifting from dark sonorities to light-drenched obliquity in the blink of an eye. New York-based Shahzad Ismaily plays bass and synth here, although I've seen him at festivals where he played six different instruments in six different groups. Ismaily can pretty much do anything, but here he creates a flowing, near-constant foundation effectively holding everything together. German drummer, Christian Lillinger, has also played in myriad formats, generally jazz-based, but also those involving avant-garde rock and experimental composition. His playing here is tightly focused and highly propulsive. Not unlike what Chris Corsano does when he goes right down the middle. The pieces on this album are numbered rather than named, but they are not lacking identity. From the first burst of bent notes, Square Peg is boiling. Without horns or reeds or even prominent keys to hang melodic laundry, the music feels like blocks of harmonic interplay shifting around like tectonic plates. Some of the parts where Ismaily plays synth make me think of the communion between Larry Young and John McLaughlin in Tony Williams Lifetime, but the when Grdina is on oud, the sound is unlike anything I've heard. And it is cool as hell, way beyond what little I know of non-trad oud players (Sandy Bull, John Berberian, Solomon Feldthouse). The textures the ensemble creates are hard to give name to as well. Some parts are definitely jazzoid, others are more like free-rock, still others have an almost avant-folk heft (not unlike the Wall Matthews-led Entourage LPs on Folkways). In all, it's a great LP on a great new label. And I'm looking forward to what everyone comes up with next." --Byron Coley, 2019
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DOT 002LP
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Originally released in 2020. "Welcome to the second release in the Black Dot LP series. Black Dot albums are all recorded live at the White Spot performance space in beautiful downtown Nanaimo BC, a venue which Mats Gustafsson visited on June 23, 2019. Mats is many things to many people -- a doting father, a fancier of fine bourbons, an enthusiastic sport fisherman and a record collector of unparalleled passion. But he is probably best known as a musical performer/composer/explorer with world-gobbling intentions. On this evening in June, Mats was in extremely fine solo form. Playing baritone sax, fluteophone and three 'vinyl killer' record players (containing three copies of his own Hockey 10" on Gaffer), Mats began the evening with the sounds of tabletop hockey. The hockey sounds were courtesy of the 'vinyl killer' (which look like Hot Wheels versions of VW mini-buses driving around a record), and this madness was soon intercut with insanely fleet breath manipulation on the baritone. Gustafsson is one of the few players (along Anthony Braxton, Peter Brotzmann and the late Hamiett Bluiett) who has managed to bend the baritone sax to his will. Even the tenor is a big horn, requiring some real meat/lung duality for successful wrangling, but the baritone is a monster. Although Mats handles it as though it were a baby otter (albeit a large baby otter.) His click-stop playing shows he has darn nice tongue control, with grumbles of mutated melodic construction poking up and then hiding again, burrowing deep into the fabric of pure sound. As the set continues, the sax gets more aggressive -- inflating and inventing new strategies of sonic architecture, tearing up the air, sometimes inhabiting the so-called freak register like it was born there, at others playing melodies as though Coleman Hawkins' ghost was haunting its bell. Sometimes when he's playing, Mats gets an expression on his face that suggests he's revisiting the entire history of jazz music (something I know he carries around in his head at all moments). And I suspect those spirits were visibly passing across his visage this night in British Columbia. Although he is revered as an avant-gardist, Gustafsson is much more than that. He embodies a tradition that connects all kinds of seemingly unrelated segments of the music, creating unexpected combinations of sound and technique that span a variety of theoretically unbridgeable gaps. The force of his playing and personality create a furnace in which everything must melt and combine." --Byron Coley
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DOT 003LP
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Originally released in 2021. "crys cole is a Canadian-born composer, currently based in Berlin. She has a long history as a sound artist, both for performances and recordings that display a subtle approach to sound generation (often involving small gestures and the amplification of objects not necessarily designed to produce music). She also creates sculptural installations featuring sound as one element amongst others. This might suggest she possesses some of the mania associated with Fluxus, but crys's work generally eschews the antic, focusing on the slow build and accretion of sound layers. On this night in Nanaimo BC, Oren and crys sat at a pair of tables. Oren held a guitar and his table was covered with electronics. crys held no instrument in her hands, but her table contained a mass of objects, some clearly electric in nature, others looking more like random bits found in a kitchen drawer. Working with these tools and microphones to amplify their voices and/or gestures, the pair created the two pieces here -- wonderfully flowing soundscapes from imaginary vistas of otherness. The instruments they employ sometimes recall the essence of things you've heard before, but more often they are sonic events whose source can only be discerned (and then, only fitfully), by trying to see who is doing what with their hands. The interplay of gesticulation and the slow swaying of their bodies resembles a kind of slow-motion dance, almost like something taking place underwater. And at times there is a concordant submarine heft to the music. Drifting as though heard through a waving wall of water at 20,000 leagues beneath the sea. Other portions make you feel as though you are lying in a tent at night in a jungle filled with cyborg insects. It was a night of music that came and went like a dream state. Beautiful, familiar and utterly strange all at the same time. Sadly, this will be the last LP in this series recorded at the original White Room, upstairs at 4 Church Street in downtown Nanaimo. A new landlord wanted to do something different with the legendary performance space/gallery, and so it goes. We are assured, however, that a new venue will be secured in the Nanaimo area, and the shows (with concomitant live LPs) will continue once the plague has abated. For now, take the opportunity to take a trip with Oren and crys. You won't regret a moment of it." --Byron Coley
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LP
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DOT 004LP
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"Drummer extraordinaire Chris Corsano is one of the best-known percussionists of his era as well as one of the most peripatetic musicians this side of Mike Watt (with whom he sometimes collaborates.) Saxophonist Steve Baczkowski (aka 'Buffalo Steve') tends to travel less, favoring gigs within a few hundred miles of his base in upstate New York. So although he has a heavy rep (especially on baritone), his discographical count and overall profile is lower than Corsano's. That said, the two have been friends and collaborators for many years. I think I first saw them play together as part of Thurston Moore's nine piece Dream/Aktion Unit at the 2005 Victoriaville Festival. They have also recorded together regularly, often with Paul Flaherty and/or William 'Bill' Nace. That said, This Is Not a Prayer for You documents a February 2017 session, recorded in Steve's Buffalo NY living room, representing their first recording as a duo. Chris reports they listened to Dewey Redman & Ed Blackwell's 1980 duo set, Red & Black at Willisau, before they began to play, but the skronk they came up with belongs to no one else. Steve plays both baritone and tenor (sometimes with various things jammed into their bells) while Chris handles drums, percussion and slide clarinet. Between the two of them they conjure up a hell of a beautiful racket. Steve's baritone playing has a savage mass that makes me think of Frank Wright in terms of gnarly edge and sheer force, while Chris' drumming is an example of his fleetest 'straight ahead' action, displaying an approach that is without frills while still managing to be ten places at once. The opening cut, 'Slowly Getting Rid of Everything in the Middle of the Room,' is as gorgeous a piece of sax/drum dynamism as you could ask for. And the rest of the album follows suit. The sounds range from a epic sequence of the kind of blats Han Bennink sometimes managed to coax from Brotzmann when they played in duo, to a piece, 'Even the Chairs Look Like They Are Resting,' pairing slow freak register sax-slink with Corsano's slide clarinet for artistic results. But the meat of this matter is dark and red and has to do with the interplay between two musicians who know how to stay nimble even when their playing gets hard as hell, and who never falter in their ability to listen to each other. It's a deep, immersive and thoroughly wonderful spin. I'm just glad we're able to hear it at long last." --Byron Coley
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DOT 005LP
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"Although it is true that the Nanaimo concert hall known as 'The White Room' has been eradicated by real estate greedheads, Jack and Dave (who ran the place and its documenting record label) have decided to keep the label going because why the hell not? The first fruit of this divine union is the Belfort Strasse LP by Eugene Chadbourne's Contemporary Rock Band (whose name was copped from an otherwise anonymous Pismo Beach cover band). Under this exquisitely generic banner you'll find Eugene Chadbourne on vocals, guitar and banjo, Schroeder on drums, Jan Fitsjen on bass and baritone guitar and occasionally Titus Waldenfels on lap steel. Unlike their namesake, this Contemporary Rock Band only plays a couple of covers -- Johnny Paycheck's 'The Cave' and Willie Nelson's 'Wake Me When It's Over.' These are also the tracks on which Waldenfels's lap steel adds musical width, while on 'Prisoner' (recorded for Bulgarian National Radio), the ensemble features solely Chadbourne and Schroeder. The material here was recorded in 2018-19 in a basement studio on Belfort Strasse in Freiburg-im-Brieslau, Germany or in taverns within walking distance of the studio, using a mobile recording facility. A few of the tunes have appeared on some of Eugene's recent CDRs, but this the first vinyl appearance of the music, and a damn fine appearance it is. Unlike his more 'purely' avant instrumental records, Belfort Strasse is a suite of Eugene's sometimes-straight/sometimes-bent lyrics, spiced up with experimentally-canted musical flourishes that fuck with time, melody and harmonics in equal measure and at their own cruel pace. Eugene's approach is so amazingly advanced it can often be head-spinning to try and unravel its intent, but the overall effect kinda destroys the perceptual barriers between sounds deemed 'inside' and 'outside.' This is a trick Chadbourne has long been working at, but as much as I loved many of his early efforts at this syncretic mode of creation, over the years his tactics have become a bit less manic, which seems like a good thing in terms of making the lines blurrier than ever. Eugene is an artist whose aesthetic has long seemed to be dictated by Duke Ellington's statement, 'if it sounds good and feels good then it is. Good. There's no art when one does something without intention.' And to my ear, Belfort Strasse, is Eugene's most adamant exemplar of this dictum yet. If you can't dig it. I'm not certain you can dig." --Byron Coley
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CD
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BSR 827CD
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"A cornerstone of soulful reggae, Lover's Rock by Jamaican legend Delroy Wilson bridges his deep roots in ska and rocksteady with the smooth, romantic vibes of the UK's lovers rock movement. It's a noteworthy entry in the lovers rock canon and a testament to Wilson's versatility. Originally released in 1978 by Burning Sounds, this album captures Wilson's velvet-toned voice over laid-back riddims and heartfelt lyrics -- a perfect entry point for fans of both classic reggae and tender love songs. A must-have for collectors of golden-era reggae and lovers rock enthusiasts alike. Original UK pressing is increasingly rare and prized for its warm analogue sound and classic artwork. Recommended if you like: John Holt, Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown, Sugar Minott."
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LP
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BSR 827LP
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LP version. "A cornerstone of soulful reggae, Lover's Rock by Jamaican legend Delroy Wilson bridges his deep roots in ska and rocksteady with the smooth, romantic vibes of the UK's lovers rock movement. It's a noteworthy entry in the lovers rock canon and a testament to Wilson's versatility. Originally released in 1978 by Burning Sounds, this album captures Wilson's velvet-toned voice over laid-back riddims and heartfelt lyrics -- a perfect entry point for fans of both classic reggae and tender love songs. A must-have for collectors of golden-era reggae and lovers rock enthusiasts alike. Original UK pressing is increasingly rare and prized for its warm analogue sound and classic artwork. Recommended if you like: John Holt, Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown, Sugar Minott."
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BSR 828CD
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"Two titanic forces in reggae history -- Roots Radics and The Mighty Revolutionaires -- unite for a powerful dubwise journey on Outernational Riddim. This long-anticipated collaboration blends heavyweight rhythms, militant drum patterns, and deep, atmospheric dubs that channel the essence of Jamaican roots music with a forward-thinking production style. The Roots Radics, known for backing icons like Gregory Isaacs, Barrington Levy, and Israel Vibration, bring their unmistakable heavyweight style to this session. Meanwhile, The Revolutionaires, studio legends behind countless Channel One classics, lace the tracks with their tight arrangements and classic rockers grooves. Produced and mixed in true dubwise tradition, Outernational Riddim delivers an essential release for fans of roots reggae, dub collectors, and sound system culture. From deep and meditative grooves to militant stepper rhythms, Outernational Riddim is a testament to the timeless strength of Jamaican instrumental reggae and dub -- an 'outernational' statement from two of reggae's most respected rhythm sections."
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BSR 828LP
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LP version. "Two titanic forces in reggae history -- Roots Radics and The Mighty Revolutionaires -- unite for a powerful dubwise journey on Outernational Riddim. This long-anticipated collaboration blends heavyweight rhythms, militant drum patterns, and deep, atmospheric dubs that channel the essence of Jamaican roots music with a forward-thinking production style. The Roots Radics, known for backing icons like Gregory Isaacs, Barrington Levy, and Israel Vibration, bring their unmistakable heavyweight style to this session. Meanwhile, The Revolutionaires, studio legends behind countless Channel One classics, lace the tracks with their tight arrangements and classic rockers grooves. Produced and mixed in true dubwise tradition, Outernational Riddim delivers an essential release for fans of roots reggae, dub collectors, and sound system culture. From deep and meditative grooves to militant stepper rhythms, Outernational Riddim is a testament to the timeless strength of Jamaican instrumental reggae and dub -- an 'outernational' statement from two of reggae's most respected rhythm sections."
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Cassette
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CCK 7002CS
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Cassette version. High Hopes -- new album from the Mole. High Hopes is 17 songs across 40 minutes that, as advertised, sounds nothing like High Dreams. Here, rather than the long form dance form, is a continuation of the beat tape pacing from the last album, a collection of moments posing as ideas posing as a narrative stuffed with oddities and surprises that reward the close listen. What's heard on High Hopes is the Mole's exploration of a love letter, from one person to a family, from the northern Pacific to the southern Atlantic, from a boy to a painted bird. Vancouver Island to Manantiales. The songs range from ambient sound bath and hip-hop sludge, up to micro boogie and almost house before tumbling back down and forth again. Bubbling synths, MPCs swung out, samples chopped and chewed, bass and violins from Rick and Sophie, field recordings of birds and frogs and beaches, friends and family and fiestas. Original collages from Antonio Carrau envelope this wax: jacket, sleeve and cookie. The Mole is joined by friends and colleagues on several songs included on High Hopes. Rick May plays bass on both "Que Rico" and album stand out "GoinF4er." Sophie Trudeau (Godspeed You Black Emperor) plays and arranges violins on "GoinF4er" and "Danuel Tate" (Cobblestone Jazz) and Julz Chaz (Wagon Repair) both play Vibes and Emaxx throughout the album. Working with these incredible talents not only enriched this album, but fulfilled a long-standing goal of the Mole's; to work again with the musicians from whom he learned so much. People who helped inform the shape of Mole to come. High Hopes is the Mole's fifth solo album and his second album for Circus Company, who have also proudly released two EPs of Mole magic.
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CD
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DUST 134CD
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"Fragments was a completely new way of working for us. We've always worked with an internal brief, creating documents, pictures and videos, simply because keeping an idea on track with three individuals can be difficult. It's easy for someone to be edged out of the creative process when the focus is not clearly defined. It's a formula we've used since the early 2000s, but things have changed a lot since then, particularly when we decided to dip our collective toes into supporter memberships with Patreon. It made us think about what we could do directly for our supporters rather than just the next album or project. At first, the whole thing felt odd and uncomfortable, but we decided that we'd try a few things and ask for feedback. Fragments was initially a way for us to see how we could include others in an ongoing creative process. There was no over-arching concept, no defined characteristics or purpose, just the promise that there would be at least one new track for members to download every month. Consequently, we never knew what was coming next, so the old, very focused working method was irrelevant. It was difficult for us to let individual tracks go without knowing what was coming next, but this also made the project more interesting. And then C19 hit and we were forced to continue the project remotely from our home studios. As difficult as the disruption was, it was during this period that we realized we could reorganize and remaster the individual tracks into a coherent album, capturing a specific moment in time and drawing a line under the first phase of the project. Like our Allegory EPs, we've tried to keep everything stripped back. We used to hide many subtle elements within the layers, but not so much this time. Fragments is our journey through many changes, both self-imposed and those imposed upon us, and it ultimately led us to create things differently. We hope you like it." --The Black Dog
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ELA 003LP
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Elations Recordings presents Depois do Silêncio, an intimate, forward-looking acoustic bass, digital keyboard and synthesizer recording by Brazilian avant-garde jazz luminaries Zeca Assumpção and Lelo Nazario. This release celebrates almost fifty years of the duo's friendship and musical affinity, continuing a musical dialogue between long-time collaborators. The duo began working together with Hermeto Pascoal's Grupo Vice Versa in the mid-1970s before forging one of Brazil's most adventurous experimental jazz groups Grupo Um in 1976; releasing three albums with a shared avant-garde and lateral, exploratory approach to sound fusing jazz and contemporary synthesis with expanded and prepared acoustic playing. Depois do Silêncio reflects the duo's long development of a shared conception of music, resulting in a work that is both timeless and modern. The music on the album was primarily recorded in Nazario's UTOPIA Studio, São Paulo, in 1994, featuring Assumpção on acoustic bass and Nazario on his newly acquired Ensoniq TS-12; these recordings were supplemented with acoustic bass for "Quintal da Memória" in 2018 and completed with an additional layer of rich, complex analog and virtual synthesis following their rediscovery of the material in 2022. Assumpção's deeply expressive acoustic bass playing forms the backbone of these compositions, augmented by Nazario's expansive and exploratory approach to synthesis, its constantly shifting timbres "making music a living organism, which adapts to situations as they appear." Nazario explains that "although the themes are written, much of the music is improvised based on an organic development of ideas, all intertwined and interrelated exactly as happens in a living organism." The album title Depois do Silêncio ("After Silence") references a phrase by the writer Aldous Huxley; "after silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." Assumpção and Nazario continue a search for new forms of musical expression, and here they succeed in creating music that "expand[s] the sound of musical instruments, so opening new horizons in the minds of listeners."
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12"
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EUDEMONIA 020EP
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Eudemonia marks a significant milestone with its 20th release: Cerebral Waves, the debut EP from Irish sound engineer and producer Kevin O'Reilly, known under his alias Otherend. This four-track collection dives deep into the electro continuum, weaving together cerebral rhythms, acidic textures, and cosmic atmospheres. The EP includes three original tracks built around crisp drum patterns and spacious synths, offering a thoughtful take on electro with subtle cosmic touches. It closes with a remix from Sound Synthesis, who brings a smooth melodic drive while keeping the release's spacey character intact.
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2LP
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FR 040LP
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Frozen Reeds presents Mark Fell's Psychic Resynthesis, an instrumental work performed by Explore Ensemble. This double LP, with included digital download, is the label's eighth release, arriving 13 years after its foundation. Fell is a multidisciplinary artist, composer, and theorist based in Rotherham, UK. Renowned for his rigorous and conceptual approach to electronic music and sound art, his work explores the limits of structure, rhythm, and perception through a blend of computational systems, philosophical inquiry, and cultural critique. Over the last decade, Fell's practice has visibly shifted from a world of technical intricacy and myopic microdetail to one of collaboration and community. He has purposefully sought out diverse musical partners from a wide variety of traditions and disciplines and found equally diverse ways to work and create together -- not to integrate their playing into a musical fusion, but rather to discover how such combinations of approaches and experience can stimulate unique and heretofore unheard results. The music here emerges from a commission for contemporary chamber group Explore Ensemble, situating Fell's work in a new context entirely. Having been a notable critic of classical music's slavish adherence to traditional musical notation, "the score," and its associated issues of control and hierarchy, one might expect a provocative or abrasive approach. Instead, a work of deep, tonal introspection unfolds -- an elegant structure navigating the artist's trepidatious relationship with linear or timeline-based musical approaches. In Fell's selection of timbres and events, the dynamic of composer and performer is interrupted by his twin adoption of system and flexibility. Mathematical determination and sonic fixation vie for dominance. The conflict governing combinations. Upsetting preconceived strategies. Published in an edition of 777 double LPs, with included digital download, the result, Psychic Resynthesis, represents both a prismatic object for repeated examination and an abstruse table of musical correspondences. Artwork and design by Mark Fell. Mastering by Jim O'Rourke.
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GB 152LP
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2025 repress; LP version. Mute is an album that explores distance, speech -- and the lack of it. It's a series of musings on people, places -- and leaving. The record began life with the core of El Khat -- multi-instrumentalist el Wahab, percussionist Lotan Yaish, and organist Yefet Hasan -- recording in an isolated village underground shelter. "My state of mind at the time affected the compositions even before I wrote the music," el Wahab notes, "and the isolated location gave us a chance to make sense of that." Following those sessions, in the summer of 2023 the group emigrated to Berlin; a far cry from Jaffa, where they'd largely grown up. The move was an expression of the nomadic urge that has been a constant in el Wahab's life, one that flows directly into his work. "These songs are about emigrating, leaving someone or somewhere. I don't think I've stayed in any one place for more than a year. For us Arab Jews whose families were forced to leave Yemen, it really began with that big move and our families' arrival in Israel, a land with a constant muting of the 'other'." Mute, he feels, is "a big and meaningful record." It's a story of endings and new beginnings. "But that's true of all our albums" el Wahab insists. "They're about relationships and the struggle to see two sides as a whole and not something that ends with muting and conflict. The songs here are about old loves, country, family. They are about feelings and identity." And all of that inevitably brings up many questions. El Wahab keeps reinventing himself: even his career has been an act of self-invention. Unable to read music, he still managed to talk his way into the Andalusian Orchestra, playing cello by ear until he learned music theory. And instruments he uses on his albums, like the blue gallon (actually a jug) or the kubana (named after a type of Yemeni bread) are also self-invented. These handmade, one-of-a-kind instruments sit at the heart of Mute. He's always made music from the items others discard. Everything recycled and reused, nothing wasted.
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CD
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GB 177CD
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A voice, timeless as the desert, swirls up like the sirocco, drenched in cavernous reverberation, accompanied by the solitary, meditative swells of the ardine, an acoustic harp that dials in the fundamental frequency of Noura Mint Seymali's music. A brief pause, and the same refrain returns, this time picked out on a heavily flanged electric guitar, grounded by thunderous drums and growling electric bass. And there's that voice again -- direct and urgent, careening off into wild ululations and refracted echo. That's the opening two tracks on Yenbett, the brand-new album by Mauritanian force of nature, Noura Mint Seymali. In just under four and a half minutes, these two versions of the song "Lehjibb" set the tone for what's to come -- a trance-inducing and ferociously evocative blend of ancient Northwest African musical tradition and searing, electrified Saharan future rock. Noura Mint Seymali is a living embodiment of musical tradition. She hails from a family of musical visionaries: her father, Seymali Ould Ahmed Vall, was a renowned composer and scholar and her stepmother, Dimi Mint Abba, was a cherished singer and performer. Seymali is a practicing griot -- equal parts poet, singer, musician, historian and cultural custodian -- and a living embodiment of Mauritania's tradition of Moorish griot music. "The griot are highly respected lineages in our culture and are a source of social cohesion and social history that endures," Seymali explains. "We are still a kind of mirror for society, reflecting back the social bonds and history to the people. It's still the griot who are the artist celebrants of traditional weddings and ceremonies. And it's still griot representing the culture as artist ambassadors." In this role, Seymali performs as a powerful vocalist with both a deep connection to the griot's timeless repertoire, and an urge to create fresh, contemporary messages. Rounding out the band are bassist Ousmane Touré, and on drums Matthew Tinari -- an American who has resided in Senegal for many years. Tinari also co-produced the album, together with Mikey Coltun, best known as bassist with Tuareg rock pioneers Mdou Moctar. It's no surprise, then, that Yenbett smolders with a languid fire comparable to the desert blues played by West African groups such as Mdou Moctar. Certainly, Seymali can see a connection between the blues and West African music. "It's sewn from the same cloth," she says.
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LP
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GB 177LP
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LP version. A voice, timeless as the desert, swirls up like the sirocco, drenched in cavernous reverberation, accompanied by the solitary, meditative swells of the ardine, an acoustic harp that dials in the fundamental frequency of Noura Mint Seymali's music. A brief pause, and the same refrain returns, this time picked out on a heavily flanged electric guitar, grounded by thunderous drums and growling electric bass. And there's that voice again -- direct and urgent, careening off into wild ululations and refracted echo. That's the opening two tracks on Yenbett, the brand-new album by Mauritanian force of nature, Noura Mint Seymali. In just under four and a half minutes, these two versions of the song "Lehjibb" set the tone for what's to come -- a trance-inducing and ferociously evocative blend of ancient Northwest African musical tradition and searing, electrified Saharan future rock. Noura Mint Seymali is a living embodiment of musical tradition. She hails from a family of musical visionaries: her father, Seymali Ould Ahmed Vall, was a renowned composer and scholar and her stepmother, Dimi Mint Abba, was a cherished singer and performer. Seymali is a practicing griot -- equal parts poet, singer, musician, historian and cultural custodian -- and a living embodiment of Mauritania's tradition of Moorish griot music. "The griot are highly respected lineages in our culture and are a source of social cohesion and social history that endures," Seymali explains. "We are still a kind of mirror for society, reflecting back the social bonds and history to the people. It's still the griot who are the artist celebrants of traditional weddings and ceremonies. And it's still griot representing the culture as artist ambassadors." In this role, Seymali performs as a powerful vocalist with both a deep connection to the griot's timeless repertoire, and an urge to create fresh, contemporary messages. Rounding out the band are bassist Ousmane Touré, and on drums Matthew Tinari -- an American who has resided in Senegal for many years. Tinari also co-produced the album, together with Mikey Coltun, best known as bassist with Tuareg rock pioneers Mdou Moctar. It's no surprise, then, that Yenbett smolders with a languid fire comparable to the desert blues played by West African groups such as Mdou Moctar. Certainly, Seymali can see a connection between the blues and West African music. "It's sewn from the same cloth," she says.
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GREYFADE 002LP
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Originally released in 2021. The first volume in an ongoing collaboration between composers Kenneth Kirschner and Joseph Branciforte, From the Machine explores the application of software-based compositional techniques -- including algorithmic processes, generative systems, and indeterminacy -- to the creation of new music for acoustic instruments. Featuring members of Flux Quartet and International Contemporary Ensemble. Although digital approaches to music-making are most closely associated with the use of electronically generated (or modified) sound, computer-based composition opens up a vast space of possibilities beyond timbre, into fundamental questions of basic musical structure. This collaborative project between composers Kenneth Kirschner and Joseph Branciforte sets out to explore some of these possibilities by adapting techniques from electronic composition -- including algorithmic processes, generative systems, and indeterminacy -- to the creation of new music for acoustic instruments. From the Machine, Vol. 1 documents two pieces that were composed using non-linear software techniques, translated into traditional musical notation, and performed by acoustic ensembles: Kenneth Kirschner's "April 20, 2015" for piano and two cellos and Joseph Branciforte's "0123" for low string quartet. Recorded by pianist Jade Conlee and cellists Mariel Roberts and Meaghan Burke, the acoustic adaptation of "April 20, 2015" brings a new level of nuance and a heightened sense of drama to a piece originally composed without the human performer in mind, while preserving the expanded sense of rhythmic, harmonic, and structural possibility that Kirschner unearthed in the digital realm. "0123" was recorded by a distinguished ensemble consisting of violinist Tom Chiu (Flux Quartet), violist Wendy Richman (International Contemporary Ensemble), cellist Christopher Gross (Talea Ensemble), and double-bassist Greg Chudzik (Talea Ensemble). An entryway into Kirschner and Branciforte's ongoing experiments with digitally mediated chamber composition, From the Machine, Vol. 1 also represents a point of departure for the Greyfade Label as a whole, which seeks to be a vital outpost for algorithmic and process-based music in the coming years. Whatever novel results lie ahead, Kirschner and Branciforte's first release provides a model for a music that is elaborately constructed, exactingly realized, and deeply personal all at once.
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GREYFADE 005LP
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Originally released in 2022. A beautifully meditative and architectural set of loops for solo piano, Filters is the solo debut of pianist and composer Phillip Golub (b. 1993). Approaching the concept of endless repetition through the lens of his delicate and expressive pianism, Golub's loops unite the austerity of the systems-based with the infinite variety and imagination of live performance. The process of manual repetition resembles for Golub a kind of ritual, rather than merely a technological process. It is the act of participation in an entity unfolding over time that interests him. He explored different durations and performance contexts, sometimes quietly performing a loop or two as guests arrived to a recital hall, other times programming afternoon-length performances in which each loop extended to durations of 45 minutes or more. He even experimented with orchestrating the loops for various mixed chamber ensembles. For the recording of his debut solo album, however, Golub wanted to distill the timeless quality of these pieces into a piano-only, LP-length experience. In summer 2019, while in Los Angeles for work on an opera with Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding, he scheduled time to record on a privately owned and beautifully maintained Steinway D. Golub then edited together his favorite sections of these extended performances to construct the final album versions. Structurally, each loop proceeds by ordering two internal sections into larger patterns. While the harmonic and formal dimensions of Filters are meticulously controlled, some aspects of the compositions are left intentionally open. There is no explicit rhythm specified in the composition, for instance; the approximate timing of each event is indicated with space-time notation. Filters is intentionally designed to work in many contexts. Although the structural integrity and endlessly variegated details of these loops reward focused listening, they never demand it. This is also just beautiful music to get lost in.
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LP
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GREYFADE 006LP
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The sophomore release from vocalist Theo Bleckmann and electronic musician and producer Joseph Branciforte, LP2 is a follow-up, companion piece, and elegant evolution of the shared musical language first developed on the duo's debut, 2019's LP1. Branciforte and Bleckmann return with a meticulously crafted album of even greater scope and complexity, further dissolving the boundaries between improvisation and composition, live performance and studio production, human and machine-generated sound. The first sound one hears when putting the needle down on LP2 -- a granular skein embroidered with the barest silhouette of a melody -- is a moment typical of the collaboration between Theo Bleckmann and Joseph Branciforte: one is never quite sure where the human ends and the operations of machines begin. The album, in its concentrated 42 minutes, proves that the palpable sonic chemistry heard on Bleckmann and Branciforte's debut was no fluke. The duo has built on LP1's successes -- alloying Bleckmann's otherworldly vocals with Branciforte's extended electronic palette and obsessively detailed production -- but they have also broken new ground in both textural invention and compositional scope. Whereas LP1 was recorded spontaneously -- with no premeditation and minimal post-production -- the sessions for LP2 proceeded somewhat differently. The pair also allowed themselves the use of studio overdubbing, occasionally adding additional instrumentation to their improvisations after the fact. One hears fleeting moments throughout the album when the dream logic of free improvisation and the premeditated nature of orchestration converge: a vibraphone doubling a meandering vocal line, or a stack of voices outlining an intricate chord progression. These moments reveal the duo's willingness to experiment with structure and form, while maintaining the spontaneity that made their first album so compelling. LP1 and LP2 also serve as fitting bookends to the Greyfade label's inaugural series of releases.
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LP + 7"
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GUESS 272LP
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Named after the galactic location of the nearest black hole to Earth, Connecticut psychedelic band NGC-4594 only issued one single during their brief existence in 1967, Skipping Through The Night (truly an acid-head anthem) backed with "Going Home." Rumors of a lost, unissued full album started to circulate until psych music researcher Gray Newell found it. Top shelf acid-rock/psychedelia, highly recommended if you dig Country Joe & The Fish, Jefferson Airplane, Spirit, Doors, H.P. Lovecraft, Love. LP + 7" single, housed in a hard cardboard sleeve. Remastered sound. Insert with liner notes by Gray Newell and photos.
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