"Following the Yin (feminine, darkness, night, earth) represented on Occult Architecture Vol. 1, Vol. 2 presents the Yang. Yang means "the bright side of the hill" and is associated with the male, sun, light and the spirit of heaven, and as such Vol. 2 explores the light and airy elements of Moon Duo's complex psyche."
"In production we referred to Vol. 1 as the fuzz dungeon, and Vol. 2 as the crystal palace," guitarist Ripley Johnson explains. "The darkness of Vol. 1 gave birth to the light of Vol 2..

"Recorded live in Munich in 1982 using two Prophet synthesizers and voice, this album is a reflection of Riley's ongoing interest in melding improvisation, electronic music, and the raga vocal stylings of his mentor, Pandit Pran Nath."

"His voice twists and curves in complicated arabesques, recalling Indian music, and especially the singing of Mr. Riley's colleague and teacher, Pandit Pran Nath, who is also associated with Mr. Riley's long-time friend LaMonte Young. The synthesizers create a...

"Fairport Convention, the UK's most influential folk-rock band, celebrates its 50th anniversary with 50:50@50. Half the fourteen tracks were recorded at recent concerts and half in the studio. With nine compositions by members of Fairport, the album presents a mix of brand new songs and favourites from Fairport's repertoire. Two tracks feature guest lead vocals: one from Robert Plant and one from Pentangle's Jacqui McShee. The band was formed by Ashley Hutchings in 1967's 'summer of love' and became one...

"Ten Years Alive On The Infinite Plain is the quintessential work of artist/filmmaker/composer Tony Conrad. Comprised of both film installation and minimalist score for amplified strings, Ten Years leaps across genre and medium to connect his revolutionary structural filmmaking with the experiments in long-duration sound that Conrad had begun in the 1960s as part of the Theatre of Eternal Music. 'Ten Years began with image before sound,' writes Andrew Lampert, 'a row of quadruple projections arranged...

Mats Gustafsson, tenor saxophone
Ken Vandermark, clarinet, tenor saxophone
Fredrik Ljungkvist, clarinet, tenor and baritone saxophone
Guillermo Gregorio, clarinet, alto saxophone
Jeb Bishop, trombone
Per-Äke Holmlander, tuba
Joe Morris, guitar
David Stackenäs, guitar
Sten Sandell, piano
Jim Baker, ARP synthesizer, piano
Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello
Kent Kessler, bass
Johan Berthling, bass
Michael Zerang, drums, percussion
Raymond Strid, drums

"Glasses was recorded in October, 1977, during a highly significant period in McPhee's work, as he was pioneering the transatlantic, collaborative spirit that has helped to define the last three decades of his career. Documented in Tavannes, Switzerland, the set contains sensational tenor work, including the title piece, which finds McPhee ringing out a rhythm on a half-full wine glass, from which he extrapolates a melody on the saxophone, as well as a stunning version of John Coltrane's "Naima." The...

Alto/Baritone Saxophone: Peter Brötzmann
Contrabass: Peter Kowald
Drums: Pierre Courbois
Recorded May 1, 1966 at the Frankfurt Jazz Festival

Joe McPhee on tenor and soprano saxophone
Recorded live by Claude Robert October 11, 1977 at Salle Ste Croix des Pelletiers in Rouen, France.

"Variations on a Blue Line/'Round Midnight was recorded in October, 1977, during a highly significant period in Poughkeespie, NY, multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee's work, as he was pioneering the transatlantic, collaborative spirit that has helped to define the last three decades of his career. Blue Line comes from a concert in Rouen, France, when McPhee...

McPhee solo on tenor saxophone, toy piano, toy percussion, recorder, soprano saxophone, Space Organ, flute, feedback, kalimba, echoplex, and percussion
Recorded 1968/69 and 1970/73

"Sound on Sound is a two-CD set of these previously unreleased solo recordings by Poughkeepsie, NY, multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, dating from 1968 to 1973. The extraordinary tracks document the very early years of McPhee's tenor playing (he was intitally a trumpet player, though he was an absolute natural...

Joe McPhee, brass and reeds
"In his upstate NY secret laboratory, home-based in Poughkeepsie, Joe McPhee diligently documented his activities throughout the '70s, with the help of Craig Johnson, the producer who started CjR as an outlet for McPhee's music. Among the unreleased tapes waxed in that span, Alone Together is unique and especially beautiful. Like Sound on Sound (released by Corbett vs. Dempsey in 2010), these recordings make use of multitrack recording, overdubbing McPhee upon McPhee...

"Saxophonist George Davis is an enigmatic figure in postwar jazz. He’s best known for leading the band in which Jackie & Roy met – young singer Jackie Cain encountered pianist Roy Krall in the mid-1940s, playing together under Davis in a club on the south side of Chicago called Jump Town. They cut two 78-rpm records for Aristocrat as the George Davis Quartet; these sides followed Davis into obscurity. In 1948/49, Jackie & Roy went on to work with Charlie Ventura. At the same time, Davis cut a very...

One of the greatest, most damaged albums ever. In any genre or category. Period. The only album that sounds like this one is this one.

"One of the absolute essentials of Chadbourne's oeuvre, what he described as "free improvised country & western bebop," featuring his frantic, skewed interpretations of classic songs such as Merle Haggard's "Swingin' Doors," Roger Miller's "The Last Word in Lonesome is Me," and Willie Nelson's "Mr. Record Man," There'll Be No Tears Tonight was recorded in Spring...

"One of the most celebrated folks in improvised music, Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson made three ultra-limited edition vinyl LPs, each featuring a different dedication to a favorite musician from the past. Released in batches of 99, these records found Gustafsson playing compositions by Duke Ellington, Albert (and his brother Donald) Ayler, and the important post-bop baritone player Lars Gullin. Long out-of-print, these priceless slabs of free music have quickly become sought after collector’s items...

"At the end of his time in Chicago, in 1999, Brian Calvin recorded a batch of new songs with poet Devin Johnston. Designed to be an album, mostly recorded and mixed by Jim O'Rourke, who also plays bass and contributes background vocals on some cuts, they were never released, languishing in the vaults for almost two decades. Calvin and Johnston had both been members of USA, the band that recorded an LP and an EP for Drag City in the two years before this music was recorded. On the occasion of...

Phillip Wilson, percussion
Olu Dara, trumpet, horn (serpent)
"In November 1977 and May 1978, months before drummer Phillip Wilson recorded his great LP Duet with trumpeter Lester Bowie for the Improvising Artists label, Wilson hit the studio for Esoteric, a recording of solos and duets with cornetist Olu Dara. Wilson (1941-1992) was one of the key percussionists in creative music, the Art Ensemble of Chicago's early trapsman, one third of the fusion band Full Moon, and an all around fount of inventi

Staffan Harde, guitar
Lars Sjösten, piano (3, 5, 6)
Lars-Urban Helje, bass (2, 3, 5), percussion (6)
Bengt Berger, drums, percussion (3, 6)

"Based on the tiny Swedish fishing island of Smogen, guitarist Staffan Harde created a wholly unique and wondrous approach to his instrument, documented assiduously on hand-made reel-to-reel tapes and this lone LP from 1972, which features Harde solo and with small groups. His accomplices included pianist Lars Sjösten, bassist Lars-Urban Helje...

Tristan Honsinger, cello, voice
Jean Jacques Avenel, bass
Tiziana Simona Vigni, voice
Sean Bergin, saxophone
Michael Vatcher, percussion
Toshinori Kondo, trumpet

"A little-known gem of Dutch free music, Picnic is the brainchild of cellist Tristan Honsinger, who composed all but one of its 12 compositions. Brilliant and whimsical, the tracks bring to mind Honsinger's work with ICP Orchestra, for whom he has also composed extensively. Here he's working in an incredible ensemb

Jimmy Lyons, alto saxophone
Karen Borca, bassoon
Hayes Burnett, bass
Munner Bernard Fennell, cello
Roger Blank, drums

"Long known as Cecil Taylor's most reliable and loyal colleague, alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons has a select discography as a leader, and among its best entries is Push Pull, originally issued by Hat Hut as a massive 3-LP set. Recorded during a single marathon performance at the Collective for Living Cinema in New York in 1978, Push Pull features five extended piec

Tenor Saxophone – Frits Krogh
Piano – Tom Prehn
Bass – Poul Ehlers
Drums – Finn Slumstrup
Recorded in Copenhagen, October 13th, 1963

"Arguably the rarest LP of European free jazz, Axiom was recorded in 1963 for the Swedish label Sonet. Test pressings were released to the musicians, but they were not approved and the label never printed more than the two first copies. Prehn's music, which is exclusively known from a 1967 release that was reissued on the Unheard Music Series, is n

Billy Bang, violin
"The long out-of-print first solo record by American violinist Billy Bang (1947-2011), recorded in 1979 and first released on Hat Hut Records, featuring his own compositions, extrapolated at length in the intimate live concert, as well as traditional and improvised material. Remastered from original tapes and augmented by newly discovered recordings from the same concert. Part of the large cache of historical Hat Hut records that Corbett vs. Dempsey continues to release. Original...

"In 1998, at WNUR Radio, Evanston, the legendary German bassist Peter Kowald met two Chicagoans in the studio for a brisk set of string trios. Fellow-bassist Kent Kessler and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, essential members of the Chicago scene, are well known as international improvisors too, and the threesome dug in for a fierce face-off. The session was closely recorded in the studio’s intimate confines, which could barely contain their energy. Kowald proposed a set of six miniatures, all ranging around...

"The Japanese improvising rock trio of Kazuto Shimizu on keyboards, Nasyuno Mitsuru on bass, and Yoshida Tatsuya on drums performing live at Club Goodman in Akihabara, Japan, 2016 for technically superb, fast paced, turn-on-a-dime, joyful prog-oriented playing."

Yoshida Tatsuya : percussion
Kido Natsuki : acoustic guitar
NasunoMitsuru : fretless bass
Miyamoto Rei : violin on track 2,4,6,8,10

Well, not 100% and strictly acoustic, but compared to the usual bone-crushing density of these guys, it's close enough.
Here's a bunch of yours and my favorites from this powerhouse outfit, performed in a very different way.

So, around 1995 or so, there was this really great album on a tiny label of this young band who were obviously well trained classically and who fused pop, eastern-european folk and classical music, with jazz and a punk attitude.
Suddenly in 1998 they reappear as DAAU on SONY Classics (!), with a very good album that included lots of musical guests. Of course *that* didn't last, so they are back on a little label again (their own, I think) for this release which celebrates 25 years of their musical...

This excellent 1972 release, Jarrett's only release on Columbia (he got canned from Columbia on the same day as Ornette, so he was in good company), has long gone in and out of print on CD and now it's back again. And it's a GOOD one.

"Pianist and composer Keith Jarrett's sole Columbia album is ironically titled, since scarcely a track on it gives the listener much indication of what follows. Originally a double LP, this 1972 set features at least half a dozen different combos - Jarrett's...