“Two masters of wind instruments blowing in from the Windy City. In 2003, as part of the seventh annual Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music, Joe McPhee and Evan Parker squared off for a round of intimate dialogues. The resulting recording is just the second time they had played as a duet, the previous also being in Chicago, at a studio in 1998, where the limited their instrumentarium to tenor saxophones, resulting in the Okka Disc classic Chicago Tenor Duets (2002).
In this case, they...

“It's easy to be cynical these days, maybe difficult to imagine that music can change the world, but not for Joe McPhee and Hamid Drake. With Keep Going, they will make the planet a better place for humanity, a place to be humane, to preserve humankind. At 78-years-old, Poughkeepsie multi-instrumentalist McPhee is a national treasure, and he's making more music than ever before, pushing himself to tour incessantly, issuing astonishing new records at a fierce rate. But this release, with legendary Chicago...

Joe McPhee - alto sax
John Butcher - tenor sax

“At The Hill Of James Magee presents the duos complete performance at the extraordinary monument "The Hill" in the Chihuahuan Desert in the middle of nowhere in Texas. John Butcher and Joe McPhee had never shared a stage before which ended up being an attentive collaboration, starting with a long duo, alternating solo performances, and closing the atmospheric set with another duo.”

“Some recordings, the world is just not ready for them when they're made. In 2008, Swedish born, Austrian resident saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and Poughkeepsie, New York multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee made a suite of studio recordings, Brace For Impact that they loved so much they immediately culled, mixed, and mastered them. A decade later, when the original label for which they were planned had not yet issued them, Gustafsson and McPhee offered them to Corbett Vs. Dempsey, and when the label couldn't...

Joe McPhee soprano and alto saxophones, pocket trumpet / Ingebrigt Håker Flaten double bass.

"This is music about, and coming from, Brooklyn, known for its large community of musicians. Particularly, about a period of local history which...

1993 truly ‘solo’ album by the late, great, ex-Groundhogs leader.

“It is unpardonable that Tony McPhee is rarely mentioned as one of the world's greatest guitarists. He masters electric, acoustic and slide guitars. Tony and the Groundhogs have made dozens of stellar albums for thirty-five years. Foolish Pride is a great CD for people who have never heard McPhee's stunning riffs. He has always been a great lyricist and his ardent vocals augment his guitar virtuosity. Evey song on "Foolish Pride"...

Noted Scottish singer/improviser Maggie Nicols started the group in 1993. She brought together female singers from the different ethnic communities of Marseille. Scored mostly for duos, with some solos & larger groupings. [Stupeur & Trompette!]

Third, final, and probably the best album by this early Swedish psychedelic/progressive hard rock album, who formed in 1967. They toured the USA in 1970, becoming the first Swedish band to tour the USA and their records were released here and a great...

“No there is nothing wrong with your equipment—the music is supposed to sound like this!
Crawlspace is Medeski at his wildest and most imaginative. Using a huge array of electric and acoustic keyboards, synthesizers mellotron and early electronic gear, he has created a complex and trippy solo project that is unlike anything you’ve ever heard before. New and uncharted sonic territory by a legendary musical master who has worked with everyone from The Meters, Irma Thomas and John Scofield to...

Well, I made the Claudia Quintet joke mentally myself, so I suppose you can do so too. Having said that, it's really nice to see this released, from our friends in Estonia who run MKDK (who also released that great Phlox album a couple of years ago)...

“Brad Mehldau’s Jacob’s Ladder album features new music that reflects on scripture and the search for God through music inspired by the prog rock Mehldau loved as a young adolescent, which was his gateway to the fusion that eventually led to his discovery of jazz.
Jacob's Ladder is made up of original compositions by Mehldau alongside interpolations and covers of songs by Rush, Gentle Giant and Yes. Featured musicians on the album include Mehldau's label mates Chris Thile and Cécile McLorin Salvant...

"On The Master and the Rain, Root Down allows Africa’s tuneful and downto-earth energy to merge with the more exploratory elements of European music concepts. There are the kicking rhythms and harmonies of South African Kwela music expressed in the...

Reed player Bruno is best known for his tenure with Etron Fou Leloublanc, but he has done many other things, as well as working with electronics in addition to his reeds in the last few years. "Bruno Meillier has provided music for dance, theatre and f...

Second great release from Myra's excellent group, which currently consists of all really great, seasoned players:
Myra Melford, piano
Cuong Vu, trumpet
Ben Goldberg, clarinet and contra-alto clarinet
Brandon Ross, guitar and soprano

A progressive rock concept work by a new band from Menorca, which is a small island in the Meditteranean and part of Baleares Islands.
The band are influenced by 70s progressive rock bands and the Pink Floyd influence is the most noticeable, but I also hear bits of Camel and more.
The DVD included is a movie for which the CD is the soundtrack. Not sure I know what is going on with all of this, but it’s an ambitious debut and you can see an excerpt of the film and hear some of the music here...

Melissa were a band from Australia and Midnight Trampoline from 1971 was their only studio album. It's a pretty rare collector's item nowadays. This reissue includes a fascinating 16 page booklet and 3 bonus tracks (one track unreleased from the sessions and one pre-album single from a year earlier!)

“The style of the material is pretty diverse because the album includes elements from psych rock, early prog rock, folk and hard rock. Like some users have already mentioned the singer reminds Van...

If you like the sound of Charlemagne Palestine's piano works, Melnyk's album is not dissimilar, although perhaps a bit more 'romantic'. Really nice stuff. I had never even heard of him or this album until now...

"Single CD featuring recordings of Tuvan folk music and throat-singing from 1969 with liner notes by noted world music scholar Dr. Pekka Gronow of the University of Helsinki. With the advent of the folk music revival in the 1960s, a new interest in...

Sebastiano Meloni-piano, Adriano Orru-double bass and Tony Oxley-drums.

''Melt Banana is the defining band of New Japanese Hardcore...their songs combine compositional complexity and improvisational noise with the power of a locomotive going full blast through a brick wall. Recorded during their tour of the States in 1998,...

Sandro Amadei - keyboards
Stefano Amadei - guitars, Irish bouzouki
Alessandro Bosca - bass
Simone Caffè - guitars
Francesco Fiorito - drums
Emanuela Vedana - vocals
with
Stefano Cabrera - cello (5, 6)
Fabrizio Salvini - percussion (3, 6); flute (6)
Hanako Tsushima - violin (10)

“Melting Clock is a musical project born in the Faculty of Physics, University of Genoa, in 2001. At the time the group’s aim, which brought together experienced musicians and beg

Virginia Genta - amplified and processed sopranino saxophone
Michele Mazzani - electric guitar and electronics
David Vanzan - electronics
Matteo Poggi - electronics

“This recording comes from a memorable show the band performed during their first (and so far last) tour in France. The concert had been a heavy mass of around 90 minutes, of whom only a part was caught on cassette, as nobody remembered to flip side when it was time. Anyway what got recorded is here, and it's still...

Aaron Siegel, percussion/Matt Bauder,reeds/ Zach Wallace, bass.

"The music played by Matt Bauder, Zach Wallace and Aaron Siegel - the three sides of the group Memorize The Sky - is like a sudden cold dive on the sea in a very hot summer day...