Is there anything better than a new Iva Bittova album? Well, maybe a new Iva Bittova and Cikori album!
This features
Iva Bittova-singing, violin, percussion
Valdimir Vaclavek-electric and acoustic guitars
Jaromir Honzak-double bass and bass guitar
Oskar Torok-trumpet
and some guests, including Hamid Drake on drums!
Vocally, she sounds great, as she always does, and this has a more languid, relaxed, jazzy sound than some of her releases and might actually serve as a great..

Iva Bittova – vocals, violin
Lenka Dusilova - vocals
Monika Naceva – vocals, guitar, loops, effects

“The concert recording captures three exceptional singers of completely different genres at joint performances in Prague and Brno in December 2017. The unique recording captures a perfect fusion of genres, intimate atmosphere and strong female energy. The best moments of the concert are now released on one digipack, which contains an audio disc and a video disc.
"Creation and artistic

Being a big fanboy, it's really nice to see Iva get another chance at a US release, this time with Bang On A Can, a band comprised of crack NYC new music composers and performers. This has a really different sound for her, even though it's all her...

Excellent and TIGHT 10 piece, instrumental Brazilian band who fuse Afrobeat stylings with Brazilian influences to come up with a different spin on a familiar sound.

“São Paulo's acclaimed ten-piece instrumental collective return for their fourth album, Quebra Cabeça. Urban Afro-Brazilian grooves, empowered horn-driven melodicism, and massive dancefloor inspiration. One of South America's most exhilarating musical propositions.
Almost four centuries after the first slave ships loaded their...

"Björkenheim has been well regarded since his 1980s work...but his recent releases have been particularly memorable." – Stereophile

Guitarist and composer Raoul Björkenheim emerged from Finland in the 80s with...

Raoul Björkenheim electric 6 & 12 string guitars
Jori Huhtala doublebass
Pauli Lyytinen saxes and wood flute
Markku Ounaskari drums

“I always felt there’s something special about having a band. An all-star session can be good too, but the thing I’m missing nowadays in jazz is really good bands playing together tightly, turning on a dime together, and especially improvising together.” – Raoul Björkenheim...

This is a reissue of the Finnish lp-only first release by this great rock/avant/fusion guitarist and his band Krakatau, and includes two bonus tracks. The record features a unique blend of heavy guitarwork combined with dual, wailing Coleman and Ayler-...

Ketil Bjørnstad piano
Tore Brunborg tenor saxophone
Jon Christensen drums

Lyrical and typically beautiful ECM release. If you like 'the sound', this has it in spades!

"Ketil Bjørnstad and Jon Christensen have been musical...

"A live recording from the Leipzig Opera House is the debut documentation of the duo of Ketil Bjørnstad and Terje Rypdal (working together since 1999). Material revisits pieces from Bjørnstad’s “Water Stories” and “The Sea” and from Rypdal’s...

This excellent release of electric music from Mali combines hunter's lute, griot guitar and percussion, and the over-all sound is much heavier than I was expecting and at times really rocks it HARD. Highly recommended to fans of rock from Africa.

"For this second album, BKO perpetuates the meeting, hitherto unpublished, between the music of the griots and that of the hunters. This project, more electric, is the result of a work elaborated during the many tours of the quintet, in Europe, Africa...

"One would be hard-pressed to come up with a better descriptor for Black Elephant's Cosmic Blues than the title of the album itself. Based in Savona, Italy, the four-piece have conjured ghosts of '70s heavy and masterful '90s riffmongering to offer a brew both potent and thoroughly modern. Cosmic Blues is their third album behind 2014's Bifolchi Inside and 2012's Spaghetti Cowboys (get it?) and marks their debut on Small Stone Records.
Comprised of lead vocalist/lead guitarist Alessio Caravelli...

“Over the course of 20 years, German artist Black To Comm aka Marc Richter has pushed the limits of and merged the aesthetics of art, conceptual installations and music, coming in a wave of innovation alongside his peers Pita, Fennesz, Felicia Atkinson and later Sarah Davachi to name a few. His list of collaborations and commissions is long and impressive. Through it all Richter as Black to Comm has challenged assumptions, explored identity and confronted the concept of authorship itself. Black to Comm’s...

This band continues in sound and spirit to his post-rock leaning 'jazz' outfit, Alas No Axis, but with different players and a bit of a different result. Still, if you are a fan of ANA, you'll love this.
Oskar Guojonsson : Tenor Saxophone
Elias Stemeseder: Keyboards
Chris Tordini: Electric Bass
Jim Black: Drums & Sampler

"Malamute is Jim Black’s latest gathering of like-minded musical souls. The band toured Europe for the first time in May 2015 performing sketches of the musi

Jim Black: Drums, Composition
Elias Stemeseder: Piano
Thomas Morgan: Bass
"Since the nineties, the drummer and bandleader Jim Black has been one of the most influential figures of progressive jazz. On his Intakt Records debut, Jim Black plays with the acclaimed young pianist Elias Stemeseder and highly in-demand New York bass player Thomas Morgan contemporary jazz with distinctive arrangements, complex rhythms and expressive improvisations.
Hank Shteamer writes in the linernotes...

"Following the successful 2016 shows in Germany (Monsters Of Rock) and the UK, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow played three British shows in June 2017, which were recorded for this set.
Together with Ronnie Romero (vocals), Jens Johansson (keys), Bob Nouveau (bass), David Keith (drums), Candice Night and Lady Lynn (backing vocals), the legendary guitarist performed a first-class mixture of classic Rainbow and Deep Purple tracks, which was exactly what the fans had requested.
Ritchie Blackmore's....

Michele Guaitoli - vocals
Beatrice Demori - vocals
Stefano Debiaso - drums
Denis Canciani - bass
Marco Falanga - electric guitars, acoustic guitars
Luca Zanon - keyboards, flute
David Del Fabro - backing vocals, piano, keyboards, duduk

“The Dark Presence is a concept album that describes a journey narrated through symbols and images from ancient Egypt to the Middle Ages, always great passions of David Del Fabro.
“The roots of the Blacksmith Tales project were bor

“Bladder Flask's debut (in fact only) LP, originally issued by Orgel Fesper Music in 1981, is one of the most eclectic albums of the post-industrial era. It is both challenging and perplexing... So, put down your puny instruments of normality and breathe in the frenzied fungal spores of Bladder Flask.
The fact that Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound is a big fan of this album is testament to its greatness: "I love Bladder Flask's One Day I Was So Sad That The Corners Of My Mouth Met & Everybody...

"1974 saw guitarist Jacques Blais enter the studio with bassist/producer Yves Laferriere (Contraction, Ville Emard Blues Band). Laferriere brings along several bandmates from Contraction: singer Christiane Robichaud, keyboardist Robert Lachapelle...

"When New York saxophonist/composer Michael Blake asked me to come up with some liner notes for “Right Before Your Very Ears”, my first thought was, “Yes! There goes Blake with yet another project… and I can’t wait to hear it.” Ever since I first...

Improvisations
Duke Dreams
Suffield Gothic
Short Life of Barbara Monk
Epistrophy
Unmarked Van
Indian Winter
"The legendary jazz recordings made by Black Saint/Soul Note make a welcome return to the active catalog with this series of specially-priced boxed sets that highlight some of the label's finest artists. Ran Blake - The Complete Remastered Recordings features seven discs in slipcases with original album artwork housed in a clamshell box."

There’s a lot of good stuff here and a lot of stuff you don’t know, but possibly most essential of all is the DVD, which is just amazing.

“Lighthouse’ is an anthology from the entire Tim Blake pantheon, a 3-CD set selection from work with Gong, Hawkwind and 5 solo albums, plus a DVD of a live solo performance from 1979, and extensive liner notes from Hawkwind-head Ian Abrahams, including extracts from interviews. You can take this release in a couple of ways: as an introduction to his work, for...

This is a relatively recent (last decade) release by this grandaddy synthi-wizzard and is quite excellent in quality and style overall! Yes, it’s digital, but it still sounds like Tim! Recommended.

“This is the first ever CD release of “Noggi Tar”, Tim Blake’s 2012 album, previously only available as a download from his official website.
Tim first came to prominence as a member of Gong, where his synthesiser experimentation and mastery was demonstrated on albums such as Flying Teapot”...

"This is truly one of the great classics of hard bop, with drummer Art Blakey leading arguably his greatest Jazz Messengers lineup through a driving program that never lets up. Tenor saxophonist Benny Golson (whose composition "Along Came Betty" is...

Jakob Aistleitner - Saxophone, Flute, Electric Guitar, Percussion, Vocals
Peter Baxrainer - Electric Guitar, Vocals
Manuel Schönegger - Trombone, Flute, Percussion, Vocals
Jakob Sigl - Drums, Percussion, Tape, Vocals
Dominik Wallner - Electric Piano, Organ, Synthesizer, Vocals
Alfons Wohlmuth - Electric Bass, Flute, Vocals

I thought that this was a pretty great one over-all and this is definitely of interest to folks into the avant-progressive side of things; now I need to

"The trombone is one of the original jazz instruments, having a very special role in the early music of New Orleans. In the ‘modern jazz’ era the technical capabilities of the instrument were developed to incredible levels. Later, from around the 1960’s..