New Arrivals

New Arrivals
"The highly anticipated official reissue of holy grail album MKWAJU by acclaimed Japanese percussionist Midori Takada's MKWAJU Ensemble, sourced from the original masters.
Originally recorded in February and March 1981 and released by fabled Japanese avant-garde label Better Days (home of Ryuichi Sakamato's debut album, Yasuaki Shimizu's Kakashi (1982), Colored Music's self-titled LP, MKWAJU is the fruit of the collaboration between Takada's crew and world-famous composer/musical director Joe...

"More than 20 years in the making, I/o is Peter Gabriel’s first album of new material since 2002’s Up.
Whispers and rumours have speculated about its musical direction, about its songs, and about what they have to say. Not that there haven’t been tastes of what’s in store over the past few months. Since January 2023, Peter has been releasing a new song from the album on the occasion of every full moon. Being revealed roughly every four weeks, each track has been allowed to find its own time and...

Anthony Béard: guitar, scream
François Mignot: guitar
Nicolas Bernollin: drums
Benoit Lecomte: bass

Amazing and powerful instrumental avant rock from this quartet. Maybe you could say that this sits somewhere between Don Cab and Happy Family?
François is the guitarist on the last Present album, so you know he’s a monster, but they ALL are.

Anthony Béard: guitar, scream
François Mignot: guitar
Nicolas Bernollin: drums
Benoit Lecomte: bass

Amazing and powerful instrumental avant rock from this quartet. Maybe you could say that this sits somewhere between Don Cab and Happy Family?
François is the guitarist on the last Present album, so you know he’s a monster, but they ALL are.

Antoine Arnera - keyboards, vocals
Boris Cassone - guitar, vocals
Benoit Lecomte - acoustic bass
Guilhem Meier - drums, vocals
Junko Ueda - satsuma biwa, vocals

“Unexpected encounter between Junko Ueda, eminent figure of the Japanese medieval epic storytelling, whose warm and profound voice summons the terrestrial energies, and the organic madness of the monster PoiL practicing with cosmic rock without net.
Just after releasing the debut record, the story continues wi

Antoine Arnera - keyboards, vocals
Boris Cassone - guitar, vocals
Benoit Lecomte - acoustic bass
Guilhem Meier - drums, vocals
Junko Ueda - satsuma biwa, vocals

“Unexpected encounter between Junko Ueda, eminent figure of the Japanese medieval epic storytelling, whose warm and profound voice summons the terrestrial energies, and the organic madness of the monster PoiL practicing with cosmic rock without net.
Just after releasing the debut record, the story continues wi

Antoine Mermet : saxophone, synthétiseur, delay, voix, composition
Camille Durieux : synthétiseurs, voix
Léo Dumont : batterie, voix
Lucas Hercberg : basse, voix, composition

“CHROMB! has been making CHROMB! for ten years, five albums and many concerts. And CHROMB! is music. The band is driven by four heads, propelled by an overflowing imagination, electrically powered and impervious to classification.
Sometimes its mother is jazz, since CHROMB! looks like her in photo

Antoine Mermet : saxophone, synthétiseur, delay, voix, composition
Camille Durieux : synthétiseurs, voix
Léo Dumont : batterie, voix
Lucas Hercberg : basse, voix, composition

“CHROMB! has been making CHROMB! for ten years, five albums and many concerts. And CHROMB! is music. The band is driven by four heads, propelled by an overflowing imagination, electrically powered and impervious to classification.
Sometimes its mother is jazz, since CHROMB! looks like her in photo

"Dave's career as a songwriter and keyboard player now spans over 50 years, during which time he has played and composed in various bands such as Caravan, Camel, Matching Mole, and Hatfield and the North.
Since his departure from Caravan in 2002 and then relocating to Japan, he has made a series of excellent solo albums culminating in this his latest, where he explores a whole range of musical genres including Rock, Jazz, Blues, Classical, Choral, Folk and Pop.
This is particularly noticeable...

"Nathan Davis ""writes music that deals deftly and poetically with timbre and sonority"" (NYTimes). Inspired by natural processes and acoustic phenomena, his works reveal and exaggerate subtle complexities of sound, forming an architectural sound-world through which the listener travels in experiencing a piece.
In Neutral Buoyant, Nathan turns his attention to the bowed psaltery (an American folk instrument) in a series of composed improvisations made with and without electronic processing...

“In April 1966, the duo of Graves and pianist Don Pullen played at Yale University. As John Corbett writes in the liner notes, "This performance was something of a turning point for Graves. Until then he had been working in other people's bands or collective ensembles. He was phenomenally busy. In 1965 alone, he recorded with NYAQ (two LPs), Giuseppi Logan Quartet, Paul Bley Quintet and Lowell Davidson Trio, and he made his first recording released under his own name, Percussion Ensemble. Every one of...

"By the early '70s, Milford Graves had more or less stopped gigging. Having learned his lesson the hard way in multiple-night runs like a legendary Slugs' residency with Albert Ayler, he knew that the level of energy that he put out during a performance would be difficult to sustain over the long haul. A concert was a kind of absolute ritual for him, after which he would be totally spent, emotionally and physically. Graves rarely left anything on the table. Any musical performance was an opportunity to...

"The late percussionist Milford Graves was one of the most unique artists the world has ever seen. Born in Jamaica, Queens in 1941, he began his career in the early '60s as a part of New York's vibrant Latin jazz scene. His focus quickly turned inward, shifting towards a practice that explored the very nature of self. From his work in the New York Art Quartet and collaborations with Albert Ayler, Sonny Sharrock and more to his important contributions during NYC's loft era-he is, simply put, free jazz...

“Charlemagne Palestine's newest record pairs two energetic works for carillon bells. On side A, a new piece recorded at his studio in Belgium-a high-ceiling, stuffed animal paradise he calls Charleworld-among friends and divinities. On the flip side, Blank Forms Editions' very first and long out-of-print release appears on vinyl for the first time: a cathartic street recording of his 2018 musical eulogy for his late friend Tony Conrad, performed on the bells of St. Thomas Episcopal Church where the two...

“Bachman has a dedicated fan base who is tightly focused on his next steps. While he has always been restless with his art, his stylistic changes in 2020's "Axacan" demonstrated - and excited - many within that fan base as to how transformative his work and vision can be for "traditional" music in these modern times. This fresh work continued with 2022's "Almanac Behind". "When The Roses Come Again" is a perfect next step to this trendline, a synthesis of tradition and abstraction. In other words, it is...

“South African pianist Thandi Ntuli traveled to Los Angeles in 2019, where she recorded this album of bare, explorative piano and voice pieces at a Venice Beach studio with International Anthem artist Carlos Niño in the producer chair. An absolutely stunning, intimate listen, with Ntuli’s prowess as a pianist and singularity as a vocalist on vivid display as much as her fearlessness, vulnerability and adventurousness during occasional experiments with synthesizers and percussion. Niño colors open...

Here is the original soundtrack of this much sought-after, unique, and *very* proggy 1973 soundtrack to a charming animated sci-fi film (released here in the USA as Fantastic Planet). This edition has quite a bit of bonus material that I believe has never seen the light of day before.

Written by Alain Goraguer, a film composer who really never had anything to do with 'rock' before or after this one, this features lots of wah- wah guitar, classic 70's keyboards (clavinet, Rhodes piano, string synths,

Sylvie Courvoisier: Piano
Wadada Leo Smith: Trumpet
Nate Wooley: Trumpet
Christian Fennesz: Guitar, electronics
Drew Gress: Bass
Kenny Wollesen: Drums, vibraphone

“Chimaera is the newest ensemble of pianist and composer Sylvie Courvoisier. The virtuoso band brings together key musical personalities from the New York jazz scene in Wadada Leo Smith, Nate Wooley, Drew Gress and Kenny Wollesen, and features Austrian artist Christian Fennesz, whose ambient textures can be...

Maria Valencia - alto sax, Bb clarinet, bass clarinet, toy piano, cymbal, percussion

"Compendio de Alofonías Abisales was imagined between the town of Sutatausa (Colombia) and the mountains of Banff (Canada). Intuitively, it was recorded in July 2022 during an artistic residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Inspired by old naturalist manuals, the pieces that make up this recording are fleeting sound taxonomies that ambiguously reveal the movements of the wind, the play of the...

Madison Greenstone - Bb clarinet

"Each of these studies takes as its basis a mode of resonance latent in the Bb clarinet. This album collects iterative and essayistic reflections on the self-generative qualities of these resonances. The instrument becomes a site of indeterminacy. What happens when resonance overflows? Each resonance has some form of inner agency, some form of emergent phenomena that I search to breathe into being. This demands a continually renewed attunement to the liveliness...

marta warelis - piano
onno govaert - drums
wilbert de joode - double bass

“Recorded live in the period in-between lock-downs. waive captures this special moment of the first concert experience since the covid-19 outbreak for all who were present in the room that night. Recorded when we had to slow down, abandon, sign out, solo, let go, waive.. but when we also could just look, welcome and surrender to the everblooming.”

this live performance was recorded on october 12th 202

Tony Buck: electric guitar, electric baritone guitar, arch-top acoustic guitar, bass guitar, mono-chord, waterphone, zulu-bells, and instrument preparations
Mark Nauseef: bells and gongs from Bali, Java, Korea, Japan, India, China and Tibet

“Mongrels—Buck Nauseef—two creatures with no pedigree or particular style who have absorbed, mixed and amalgamated numerous pedigrees and styles during long careers working closely with leading musicians of diverse genres including: orchestral, Javanese..

Susan Alcorn - pedal steel guitar
Luis “ToTo” Alvarez - guitar
Claudio “Pajaro” Araya - drums, cuatro
Francisco “Pancho” Araya - charango
Rodrigo Bobadilla - flute, quena, zampoña, vocals
Amanda Irarrazabal - double bass, vocals
Danka Villanueva - violin, vocals

“Pedal steel innovator Susan Alcorn combines Chilean folk and nueva canción with free improvisation and contemporary classical on her breathtaking new album.”

Fie Schouten - bass clarinet, clarinet in A, basset horn
Vincent Courtois - violoncello
Guus Janssen - piano, organ, harmonium, harpsichord
Giuseppe Doronzo - baritone saxophone (tracks 6-8, 10)

“This music is improvised and inspired by Judith Schalansky’s book "Atlas of Remote Islands: 50 islands I never set foot in and never will." The music is an echo of her writing, of inspiration by islands, entities with different and changing characteristics.”

John Blum - piano
David Murray - tenor saxophone
Chad Taylor - drums

“The Recursive Tree features a rather remarkable trio consisting of John Blum on piano, tenor-saxophonist David Murray, and Chad Taylor on drums. Although the three musicians had never before recorded together, they sound very much like a working trio.
The title is inspired by a concept in mathematics that explains the architecture in nature arising from systematic growth over time. This algorithmic expression..

Jack Wright - tenor, alto and soprano saxophones

“There is a delicacy and a passionate hardness, stripped bare of cloying sentiment. Its rawness is the exuberance of sound overflowing, basking in its self-created luxury…. It is, every bit of it, composed the same moment you hear it.”

“Musik für animierte Tonspurfilm, the twelfth album by Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung (or DAAU, as they are commonly known), is the soundtrack to a series of short, abstract animation films by Rudy Trouvé, who also acted as a creative director during the recording process. The music originates from acoustic improvisation sessions by accordionist Roel Van Camp, clarinetist Han Stubbe, double bass player Hannes D'Hoine and percussionist Jeroen Stevens. These took place according to conceptual

Holy moly; this was previously unknown and look at the band; yes it’s Shepp in (spring?) 1964 with the School Days quartet! And as a bonus, the sonics are very good, considering!

Archie Shepp – tenor sax
Steve Lacy – soprano sax
Roswell Rudd – trombone
Arthur Harper – bass
Dennis Charles – drums

“This is the earliest Shepp leader project yet on record. Under supervision of the artist, this previously unissued demo recording is now available.
As the cover of Deraill

First-ever CD release!

“Amazing modal jazz session with a deep warm vibe to it and awesome mellow electric piano. Such a great lost gem!”

"This one sort of straddles the line between electric modal jazz and early jazz-rock/fusion styles. But unlike many albums of this ilk from the early 70s US jazz scene, this lacks any of the free and freaky elements that were in vogue at the time. Instead, it embraces a more reserved and melodic sound, reminiscent of certain "brit-jazz" works that were..

“The world-renowned pianist & composer leads a sextet through 5 riveting compositions that exemplify why he's one of the most iconoclastic jazz musicians of his generation. "Now" drummer Eric Kennedy & bassist Herman Burney, are joined by Brian Settles (tenor sax), Christian Hizon (trombone), & Kevin Pinder (percussion), resulting in a meatier, grittier sound articulating Gilchrist's brooding, urban gothic take on modern jazz that subtly coalesces barrelhouse blues, stride piano, post hard-bop, hip-hop...

The second in a series of three collecting everything that can be collected by this duo. Here's a brief recap of Namlook, for those not aware of his work (he was very active in the 90s and into the early 00s).

"If most artists in contemporary electronica are like islands unto themselves, turning out tracks in relative anonymity, Pete "Namlook" Kuhlmann was a whole continent. A dizzyingly prolific composer who steadily built up an entire industry around his Frankfurt-based Fax label, Namlook's...

The recordings here are from the many, many video programs that Henry has put together, originally during the COVID Pandemic shut down, in order to keep himself (but also all of us fans and friends) sane, and which he has continued into the present day.

If by some chance you have missed these, you can see them here

Lots of great jams on some great tunes that I think that everyone reading this will k

In the early 1970s, Michal Urbaniak had one of the best jazz/rock bands in Eastern Europe. This is his two studio albums from 1973, ‘Paratyphus B’ and ‘Inactin’, both of which are very good (and only one of which has ever been released on CD before), after which he relocated to the USA where he formed a group called ‘Fusion’, and toured opening for Weather Report (where I saw them in 1975).
This is those two studio albums as well as a very excellent and lengthy never before released and lengthy 1972...

"These arthouse-punk-ska rockers from Prague deliver the goods..This band sounds like a mix of Mr. Bungle, The Residents and Frank Zappa. This album features an American producer, the same one responsible for the now defunct band Idiot Flesh (who later turned into Sleepytime Gorilla Museum). This one isn't for everyone, but definItely a great album is you love agressive, creative music and don't mind that it is sung in Czech."-Mark Catalano

"Originally released in 1993, the reissued third album by this ambitious Czech band is probably their strongest, most consistent release. Sporting comical-absurdist lyrics like their countrymen the Plastic People, Pere Ubu is also a great influence to UZD, but even more so the Alfred Jarry play than the David Thomas band of the same name. Jerky stop-start rhythms dominate here with rousing, sweeping cadences and hysterical (in more ways than one) singing as songs go through one jarring movement after the...

One of the band's better known titles, at least here in the USA, as this was the 2nd of two releases to come out in Canada, and it was relatively well distributed here. A good one

Legendary Czechoslovakian underground band who were jailed & banned many,many times in their lifetime. By this time, the band had gotten quite sophisticated, compared to their early Velvet Underground roots. This is the previously unreleased studio version of this work by them (the version previously released was a live recording)
"A dark, haunting recording from a band already deeply entrenched in the underground."

Legendary Czechoslovakian underground band who were jailed & banned many many times in their lifetime. This was the 2nd album of theirs released during their lifetime, coming out in 1978, & was recorded with an expanded lineup, including the leader of another banned band, DG07.

Reissue of the most famous (and probably the best as well) album by this classic, TRULY underground rock band from Czechoslovakia, who were destroyed by the state but who actually won in the end when they reformed to play specifically at the request of newly-elected president Vaclav Havel.
Recorded in 1974-75, this was the album whose tapes were smuggled out of the country shortly afterward & released on vinyl with a huge booklet of photos & documentation in 1978. In addition to it's notoriety, it's...

“King Crimson’s final US concert in Washington, DC (Sept 2021) and 4 additional tracks from Albany, New York (August 2021), all available on vinyl for the first time.
Named after the tour from which the performances were taken, “Music Is Our Friend” is an official bootleg featuring all of King Crimson’s final performance in North America at Washington in September, 2021.
It is now being made available as a limited edition 3LP set, re-sequenced from the CD running order to maintain the complete..

“The first official vinyl release of McDonald And Giles in decades and cut from a transfer of the original masters for first time since 1970. Originally released in 1970, this album has become a cult classic of the late British Underground era. Michael Giles' instantly recognizable drum sound and technique, along with Ian McDonald's skills as a multi-instrumentalist and composer, add to the pedigree of this classic album."

At the end of King Crimson's 1969 US tour, Ian McDonald and Michael Giles..

“Prog Band from Italy, Acqua Fragile, fifty years after the first album by the same name in 1973, comes out with a brand new work, an album with totally original songs, entitled: “MOVING FRAGMENTS”. Confirming the salient characteristics of A F style - vocal harmonies, odd tempo signatures, romanticism, aggression, theatricality and research - some new features and significant developments embellish this new album. The three original members of the band Piero Canavera/drums, percussion and vocals, Franz...

This is presented a little bit in confusing way, so here’s what this is, to the best of my ability to translate Italian and very poor English! It is a numbered, limited edition of 1,000 (oh, how far the industry has fallen)

CD 1 is a new album by Le Orme. I thought that the music was great and the band sounds like Orme. The band is embarking on their final tour next year and this was done to celebrate that as well as something to sell from the merch stand.

CD 2 is “unreleased songs...

In 1978, in the great UK Punk explosion, there emerged a very interesting art/punk trio who combined skittery guitar and sort of Beefheartian tightness/looseness in the rhythm section. They released three EPs and then did a ‘not bad pop single, imo’ with Robert Wyatt playing piano and then totally changed direction and ran as quickly as they could into pretty vapid pop music.
But this is their great early materials, all available on vinyl for the first time in 20 years.

“Emerging from the...

“Sun Ra In Brasil is a Brazilian celebration of the music of Sun Ra. The album was recorded in 2022 in Bahia and São Paulo, Brazil, and highlights incredible talent in Jazz, Avant-Pop, Rap and poetry.
It includes such Brazilian forward-thinking artists such as Metá Metá, Edgar, Xênia França, Tiganá Santana, Max De Castro, Hamilton de Holanda, as well as 3x Grammy nominated vocalist Jazzmeia Horn and world renown musician and songwriter Meshell Ndgeocello.”

Transparent orange and blue vinyl!

Once upon a time not SO long ago, it was actually possible to release an debut progressive rock album by complete unknowns that didn't ape the 70s, did something original with the form, didn't make your ears bleed by necessity and didn't need to have a girl in front sticking her tits out, and still actually have people willing to buy it and actually be interested in it. Those days are long gone. But it was possible once.

This is one of those...

They don’t talk about it anywhere, but The Holy Family is all of the final edition of Guapo (David Smith, Kavus Torabi, Emmett Elvin, Sam Warren) working in a more ‘tribal/hypnotic’ styling. But you can hear it’s them.

“The second album by underground rock-and-beyond shapeshifters The Holy Family follows up the British group’s widely praised self-titled debut from 2021 and – says foundational member David Jason Smith – “is based on a hypothetical theory that there is no such thing as ‘the future’..

" Limited Edition, Purple/Clear Color In Color"

“Formidable psychic warriors, channelers of the mystic and proponents of a spiritual quest that transcends this realm!
It is hard to know how many times the mythology and mystery of Goat’s backstory can be written about, but new release ‘Medicine’ does away with any need to dwell on the past, returning with a more introspective, slightly mellower psych-folk sound that remains recognisably them.
There is a consistently restrained...

"WRWTFWW Records announces the official reissue of Daisaku Kume's original soundtrack for the highly acclaimed 1989 Japanese crime/drama movie Violent Cop. Available for the first time outside of Japan, the album comes in a limited edition of 500 copies worldwide with a 45rpm cut providing full audio pleasure and an iconic record sleeve featuring the movie director and star: the one and only "Beat" Takeshi Kitano! Violent Cop marks Kitano's directorial debut -- a gritty neo-noir in which he stars as...

"In the late 1970’s Athens, Georgia was buzzing with a raw but sophisticated music scene. The turn of the decade began producing new sounds from bands like the B-52’s, R.E.M. and Art-Rock luminaries, Pylon. Before they were a band, Pylon were art-school students at the University of Georgia: invigorated by big ideas about art and creativity. In 1980 the band released its first record, Gyrate and began touring across the country in support of the release. Following the critical acclaim of Gyrate, Pylon...