A chance meeting in Mexico City set Points of Inaccessibility into motion. When Ibero-American composer Rafael Anton Irisarri crossed paths with Dutch media artist Jaco Schilp at MUTEK in 2024, a conversation about how technology shapes perception revealed an unexpected common ground. Schilp invited Irisarri to a spring 2025 residency at Uncloud, the Utrecht-based collective he co-founded, where Irisarri's sound began to take form amid an environment shaped by Schilp's visual research. The Uncloud studio was located inside the former Pieter Baan Centre, a forensic psychiatric prison where suspects of violent crimes were once confined. Its long history of silence and containment shaped the atmosphere in which the project developed. Within this setting, Irisarri coaxed long bowed-guitar tones through a network of pedals and looping systems. The raw gestures thickened into a vaporous and architectural field of sound. Schilp processed the material through a custom point-cloud software patch that produced images in continuous flux. The visuals flickered, dissolved and reformed like memories that resist coherence, functioning as a digital Rorschach that reflected the observer's own perception. Amid these spectral echoes, the project evolved into an examination of how the past persists within present signals. Irisarri improvised throughout the residency, generating material that allowed the visuals to develop in parallel. Once back in his New York studio, he began shaping the recordings by carving pathways through the improvisations and mapping selected passages into MIDI. This process allowed him to build outward from the bowed-guitar material with minimal overdubs, adding Prophet 5 textures, Moog bass and strings that expanded the harmonic field while keeping the original performances at the center. To refine the structure, Abul Mogard provided editorial input, working with Irisarri's stems to guide transitions and strengthen the overall pacing. What emerges is a work that examines the tension between technological systems and human presence. Points of Inaccessibility asks whether connection is still possible within environments shaped by mediation and delay, or whether we have become isolated points within the very networks that promise proximity. Points of Inaccessibility is presented on BioVinyl. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu. Artwork by Jaco Schilp. Design and layout by Daniel Castrejón.

By popular demand, Far Out present Estatica -- remastered edition of the classic 2010 album from the original Rio beach boy Marcos Valle. Evoking his Carioca sound -- where expansive orchestral sweep meets beautiful melody and complex harmony -- Valle mixes perfect romantic bossa-pop with cinematic brass and strings. This recording explores a six-decade career that has swung between pop, bossa nova, delicate psychedelia, jazz, and funk. Responsible for bossa classic "Summer Samba (So Nice)" Valle has collaborated with Leon Ware, Sarah Vaughan, and Chicago; seen his track "Ele E Ela" sampled by Jay Z for Blueprint 3; and his songs recorded by the likes of Frank Sinatra and Bebel Gilberto. Many of these tracks sound strangely familiar, as if you've always known them, fresher and more immediate than ever in Valle's modern renaissance on Far Out Recordings. This album -- Valle's fourth original recording for Far Out -- features standout compositions including the instant classic "Vamos Sambar," the infectious jazz of "Baião Maracatú," and the stunning duets and brass of "Papo De Maluco." Valle's cinematic orchestral "Novo Acorde" and the rich psych incidentals show that Valle is as creatively inspired -- by Rio, music, and a lifetime of travel touring the globe -- as he ever was as the original Ipanema beach poet. Produced by Daniel Maunick (son of Bluey, Incognito); recorded, mixed, and co- produced by David Brinkworth (Harmonic 33); and with Marcos' unparalleled arrangements, aided by horn and string arrangements by Jesse Sedoc Vocals, Valle is brought back with a widescreen bang. A modern classic that's been long out of print, Marcos Valle is reissuing Estatica. Originally released in 2010, Estatica saw Marcos effortlessly dive back into the sound of his golden era while upholding his long-standing openness to modern production techniques.

LP version. Orange color vinyl. With News from Planet Zombie, The Notwist return to view after years of exploration and experiment with an album rich in both melancholy and positivity, sketched across a suite of thrilling, fiercely committed pop songs. It's an album reflecting a chaotic world, but responding with warmth and generosity, to achieve creative and spiritual consolidation. Recorded in their home base of Munich, it reconnects with the security of the local to explore the troubles of the global: a guiding impulse writ large across this album's eleven songs. For News from Planet Zombie, the core trio of Markus and Micha Acher and Cico Beck embraced the plural possibilities of writing together, bringing songs to the collective and then arranging, rehearsing and recording that material live, in the studio. The result is an album that's energized, fully in "the now", with spectacular moments where you can hear the magic bubbling up in the dynamic between the Achers, Beck, and fellow members Theresa Loibl, Max Punktezahl, Karl Ivar Refseth, and Andi Haberl. The openness to chance also takes in guest turns from friends both local and international, reflective of a cosmopolitan Munich: Enid Valu joins in on vocals, while Haruka Yoshizawa guests on taishōgoto and harmonium, Tianping Christoph Xiao on clarinet, and Mathias Götz on trombone. The Notwist aren't best known for cover versions, but News from Planet Zombie features two: a gorgeous version of Neil Young's "Red Sun" (from 2000's Silver & Gold), and a take on Athens, Georgia folk-pop gang Lovers' "How the Story Ends." They slot into the album's narrative perfectly, nestling in like old friends, revealing The Notwist as poetic interpreters.

2026 repress. Gatefold. The legendary musical outfit Ibex Band (later metamorphosed into The Roha Band), has played a central role in defining the sound of many of the greatest stars on the music scene of Ethiopia from the mid-seventies onwards -- but their golden output has never really waned. The story of the origins of the band that provided the musical backbone for greats such as Aster Aweke, Girma Beyene, Tilahun Gessesse, backing the solo career of group member Mahmoud Ahmed as well as backing Mulatu Astatke and many others has yet to be properly told. Ibex emerged out of the ashes of the sixties group the Soul Echos band, adding Giovanni and Selamino to their ranks and taking their cues from a slew of influences, such as Motown and The Beatles, fused with traditional music. A tighter-knit unit than most bands at the time -- Ibex has remained six to seven members throughout their whole career, compared to many bands that were as large as fifteen or sixteen men strong when Ibex set out. The detailed history of Stereo Instrumental Music is in many ways unique. To begin with, it couldn't have been recorded earlier (there were no four-track recorders available) and it really couldn't have been recorded afterwards either, at least not in the years directly following, because of the toll the musical scene took from the unfavorable political climate that followed when the nascent Derg regime and rival groups tried to assert themselves, the musical equipment lent from The Voice of Gospel Radio simply disappeared from Ethiopia when the radio station folded in 1977. Whilst leaders might have professed to be revolutionary, the work ethic of the Ibex Band can truly be described as that. They never called it quits, but adapted, toured extensively abroad in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, and found ways to work even in the face of the curfew that curtailed a lot of musical life. They even played major arenas in the nineteen eighties, despite said curfew and restrictions. The whole extent of their legacy has never been told, but their music speaks louder than words, so therefore -- tune in to the Ibex Band's Stereo Instrumental Music.

Soft Echoes presents the first physical edition of In a Few Places Along the River by Abul Mogard as a limited run of 500 vinyl copies. Originally released digitally in 2022, the album now appears in its intended form, marking the label's second release. Three long pieces, composed between 2019 and 2022, emerged from Mogard's meticulous experimentation with analogue and digital instruments. Slowly evolving harmonic fields of layered drones and spectral textures drift across the record. They are enhanced by reverb from Scotland's Inchindown oil tanks, which hold the longest reverberation of any man-made structure, giving the music a haunting resonance and a sense of suspended space. "Against a White Cloud" and "In True Contemplation" open the album with their nocturnal tones that gradually intensify into dense, immersive waves of sound. Side B is devoted to the 21-minute elegiacal piece "Along the River," which flows between weight and silence, unfolding with reflective depth and moments of subtle transcendence. "Recording for this album began in 2019, when I was still living in London," Mogard explains. "The first version of 'Along the River' was created at my studio near Brick Lane. It started with experimenting around a chord progression inspired by a classical piece I had once been recommended, though, strangely enough, I no longer recall what it was. Early in 2022, I revealed the identity behind Abul Mogard and wanted to mark this new period, so I decided to release it quickly, by myself, as digital-only." After returning to Rome, Mogard created the other two pieces, working with new digital instruments alongside his modular synthesizer, and integrated recordings from the London sessions. The music reveals a patient attention to texture and space, defining his usual restraint. Described by critics as one of Mogard's most melancholic and absorbing releases, the album maintains an austere beauty and contemplative weight, leaving a lingering impression that lasts far beyond the final note. The music has extended beyond the album itself, with tracks appearing in films and contemporary artworks. Most notably, Swedish artist Peder Bjurman's "Slow Walker" audiovisual installation and French filmmaker Fleuryfontaine's politically charged animated film Soixante-sept millisecondes. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri and cut to vinyl by Lupo, the record emphasizes the clarity and depth of Mogard's frequencies, with each layer precisely balanced. The cover artwork and design are by Marja de Sanctis, who has collaborated with Abul since his first cassette release in 2012.

Double LP version. Following Léve Léve Vol. 1, this second volume continues a long-term exploration of the popular music of São Tomé and Príncipe, with a clear focus on rhythm, movement and dancefloor energy. Curated by Tom B., Léve Léve Vol. 2 brings together emblematic recordings from the 1970s and 1980s, carefully restored and remastered, designed as much for close listening as for DJ use. The compilation deepens and completes the first volume by returning to key groups such as Sangazuza, Conjunto Equador, Africa Negra, and Pedro Lima, while also unveiling previously unreleased or hard-to-find tracks. Across the record, puxa and socopê rhythms unfold with remarkable intensity, capturing these bands at the height of their powers: tight arrangements, driving grooves and a strong sense of collective momentum. Beyond celebration, Léve Léve Vol. 2 also reflects a precise cultural and political context. Several songs reference Luso-African independence struggles, spirituality, love and everyday life, anchoring this music in a history shaped by resistance, circulation and hybridization. Recorded in São Tomé, Luanda or Lisbon -- often with the involvement of key figures from the Lusophone diaspora -- these tracks reveal a modern musical landscape that has long remained under-documented. Conceived as a living record rather than a static archival object, this compilation speaks equally to DJs and curious listeners. It once again affirms Bongo Joe's approach: bringing powerful, popular and complex music back into circulation, without nostalgia or exoticism, and making it fully present today. Also featuring Sum Alvarinho, Tiny das Neves e Conjunto Sol d'África, Conjunto Mindelo, Bulawê N'Guli Fala, Quinta das Palmeiras, and Os Úntuès.

WRWTFWW Records presents the release of Renga, the new collaborative album from Gak Sato and Tadahiko Yokogawa -- available on limited edition LP (300 copies worldwide) housed in a heavyweight sleeve with inside out print of a beautiful artwork by Aoi Huber Kono. Renga is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry in which alternating stanzas, or ku, of 5-7-5 and 7-7 morae (sound units or syllables per line) are linked in succession by multiple poets. Inspired by the traditional Japanese poetic form of linked verses, Renga unfolds as a fluid ten-track journey spanning ambient, jazz, breakbeats, electronica, environmental music, techno, cinematic, library music, and musique concrète. Much like its literary namesake, the album is built on intuition and shared momentum, each piece emerging from what came before while opening new paths forward. Beats appear, disappear, then reassemble, while textures shift between organic warmth and electronic abstraction. The result is music that resists fixed categorization, existing somewhere between known subgenres and free-form exploration. The album's visual counterpart, created by Aoi Huber Kono, mirrors the sensibility of the music. It's elegant, modern, and quietly expressive, extending the idea of linked forms from sound into image.

LP version. Laurel Halo returns with an album of original soundtrack music, composed for the film Midnight Zone by visual artist Julian Charrière. Following the path of a drifting Fresnel lighthouse lens as it descends through the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone -- a remote abyssal plain in the Pacific Ocean, rich in rare metals and increasingly targeted for deep-sea mining -- the film traces a descent into one of Earth's last untouched ecosystems. Charrière's film reveals the deep not as void, but as a luminous biome teeming with fragile life: bioluminescent creatures, swirling schools of fish, and elusive predators. The suspended lens becomes an abyssal campfire, attracting species caught in the tides of uncertainty, their futures hanging in the balance. Echoing this tension, Halo's compositions evoke a sensory freefall, where gravity falters and light and sound flicker in uncertain rhythms. Midnight Zone is a sonic drift through the space between what we seek to extract, fail to understand, and must protect. Halo's score evokes the life that exists beyond a physical airbound capacity. The material features long, subtle passages of electro-acoustic ambient, drone and sound design, slowly flowing and unfolding with rich detail. The music, composed largely on a Montage 8 synthesizer and Yamaha TransAcoustic piano at the Yamaha studios in New York City, possesses an uncanny quality: that of synthetic waveforms being amplified and sung through the stringboard of the physical body of the TransAcoustic piano. Combined with stacks of violin and viol da gamba, the music on Midnight Zone possesses trace elements of a human hand in an otherwise sunken landscape. Patient, submerged, and alive. The album will be the third on Halo's imprint, Awe. The film is central to Charrière's current solo exhibition Midnight Zone. The exhibition engages with underwater ecologies, exploring the complexity of water as an elemental medium affected by anthropogenic degradation. Reflecting upon its flow and materiality, profundity and politics, its mundane and sacral dimensions, the solo show acts as a kaleidoscope, inviting us to dive deep.

LP version. Explosive. Urgent. Wildly inventive. Everyday Timebomb captures Dog Faced Hermans at their most fearless -- fusing punk intensity, free jazz chaos and political fire into a sound that defies genre and time. Long out of print and increasingly difficult to find, this lost classic is finally back on vinyl and for the first time on its own CD -- for a new generation to discover. Formed in the vibrant European post-punk scene of the late '80s, Dog Faced Hermans stood apart for their raw energy, charismatic vocals and an instrumentation that inspired artists from The Ex to Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Their fearless spirit and DIY ethos turned noise into art and protest into rhythm. This limited reissue stays true to the original analog sound while the fresh remastering gives the original tracks new depth and punch. Each copy includes carefully reproduced artwork and archival notes celebrating the band's unforgettable legacy. For fans of Chumbawamba, Rip Rig + Panic, Fugazi, and anyone who believes that music should sound like liberation itself. Everyday Timebomb is more than a record. It's a reminder of how revolutionary sound can be. LP limited to 500 copies; CD is mini-LP-format housed in Stoughton tip-on jacket. Cut at Schnittstelle Mastering and pressed at Optimal in Germany.

"I have been fascinated by the sound and potential of gongs since I first heard Stockhausen's 'Mikrophonie '1' in the late 1960s. When I moved to Oakland in 1999 I discovered the work of Karen Stackpole, one of the few percussionists in the world specializing entirely in gongs, and attended several of her performances. I always tried to imagine how I could combine my own sonic vocabulary with her incredibly rich array, and we enthusiastically agreed to a musical meeting which somehow kept being postponed, year after year. These recordings are among his most precious ones. Finally, as my teaching career at Mills College was winding down, we succeeded in making an appointment to record together at Karen's home studio in the Californian hills. As a seasoned professional recording engineer, she had her vast and beautiful collection of gongs meticulously placed and amplified. It was a joy! Guitar as gong, gong as harmony and everything in between, an interweaving that left me breathless." --Fred Firth

Double LP version. This musical journey pays tribute to René Daumal and his enchanting world of mysteries and magic. The album shares its title with Daumal's novel, Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing, published posthumously in 1952, eight years after the author's untimely death. Mount Analogue is a classic allegorical adventure novel. The novel describes an expedition undertaken by a group of mountaineers to travel to and climb the titular Mount Analogue an enormous mountain on a surreal continent, that is invisible and inaccessible to the outside world and can be perceived only by the application of obscure knowledge. The central theme of mountaineering is extensively explored through literary and philosophical lenses. Daumal died before the novel was completed, providing an uncanny one-way quality to the story, which ends abruptly in the middle of a sentence. The first disc features a fifty-minute composition divided into six chapters: "Introduction," "Meeting," "Supposition," "Crossing," "Arrival," and "Conclusion." This album weaves together a rich tapestry of diverse instruments, sounds, and voices that collectively tell the story of this conceptual work, loaded with a synesthetic multitude of colors, aromas, meanings, textures, and moods. The second disc presents five improvisations for solo electric guitar by Henry Kaiser. The first solo, Jodorowsky's "Peradam," draws its inspiration from Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1973 film The Holy Mountain, which was inspired by the Daumal novel. Kaiser's initial forty-eight-minute guitar solo serves as a foundational guide for his four subsequent, Rashomon-esque, solo musical interpretations of Mount Analogue, as seen through the psychedelic labyrinth of Jorodrowsky's cinematic masterpiece. Contributors to this musical poem include Bill Laswell (bass), Henry Kaiser (guitar), Anna Clementi (vocals), Percy Howard (voice), Hideo Yamaki (percussion), Graham Haynes (cornet), Dorian Cheah (violin), Nils Petter Molvaer (trumpet), Peter Apfelbaum (keyboard), and P.ST (concept, electronics), who all lend their talents to a series of excerpts from Daumal's text.

Saxophonist and producer Ben Vince presents his sixth album, Street Druid, the first in almost six years via AD 93. Street Druid merges acoustic, manipulated, and electronic sound. It has saxophone, synth, voice, guitars and drum machine, and features drum kit from Moses Boyd. It features artwork by Byzantia Harlow. It is at once tender, psychedelic and fierce. It is not interested in genre or category, and lasts just under 45 minutes. Ben Vince is a striking composer and performer, known for his live improvised saxophone explorations and inventive techniques in creating new rhythms, textures and moods. Through live improvisation, sonic manipulation, reprocessing and looping, his spontaneous yet intuitive approach and collaborative nature surpasses the seeming limitations of his primary instrument. His energetic and immersive solo shows encapsulate an artist at the height of their powers and is now a prominent player among a new breed of experimental artists, as well as having performed with improv ritual EP/64, Charles Hayward, Coby Sey, Valentina Magaletti, and as part of experimental post-punk band Housewives. Vince has also notable studio collaborations with electronic producer Joy Orbison, Oscar-nominated experimental pop artist/composer Mica Levi, and many others spread across the musical spectrum including El-B, Astrid Sonne, Sugai Ken, Louis Carnell, Mark Sanders, Alpha Maid, Gigi Masin, Rat Heart, Cucina Povera, and Moin.

LP version. Far Out Recordings presents Ladeiras De Santa Teresa, the debut collaboration between Rio-jazz maverick Antonio Neves and carioca percussion master Thiaguinho Silva. In what could well be the first ever Brazilian jazz album centered around two drummers, Ladeiras De Santa Teresa is an uncompromisingly groove-rich recording, steeped in trad-samba roots and brass power. Since his acclaimed 2021 album A Pegada Agora E Esssa Antonio Neves has remained a mainstay of the international facing Brazilian scene, performing both as a trombonist and drummer. His instrumental contributions to contemporary classics like Ana Frango Eletrico's Little Electric Chicken Heart, Bruno Berle's No Reino Dos Afetos 2, and Bala Desejo's Sim Sim Sim will be marveled upon by future generations. His partner in crime Thiaguinho Silva happens to be the son of percussion icon Robertinho Silva, who has played on more or less every canonical Brazilian record. Thiaguinho himself has worked with Marcelo D2, Gal Costa, Liniker and Alice Caymmi, and upon listening to Ladeiras De Santa Teresa, it's clear that Thiaguinho is more than a worthy successor to carry the Silva family torch. This synergized combo continues across the album, notably on "Fendas Vocais" with Neves doubling up on drums, exhibiting his inventive and fearless skill as an arranger. The album also features street-artist, musician and rapper Joca, adding vocalized dynamism and swagger to an otherwise entirely instrumental record on "Viagem de Trem". The album's title Ladeiras De Santa Teresa (The hills of Santa Teresa) is named in tribute to Rio De Janeiro's famed Santa Teresa neighborhood, a bohemian enclave with scenic views of the iconic cityscape. The spirit of Santa Teresa with its expansive city views and bustling energy is embodied in the album which encapsulates the jazz and samba histories felt within the neighborhood's windy alleyways and cobbled streets.

"A hidden gem of late-'70s soft rock and AOR sophistication, Craig Dove is a quietly radiant self-titled album that lives at the crossroads of singer-songwriter soul and West Coast studio craft. Originally released in scarce numbers, Dove's lone full-length statement has become a sought-after cult favorite -- a record defined by warm analog textures, mellow grooves, and a voice that carries both vulnerability and ease. With understated arrangements, melodic hooks, and the smooth polish of peakera album-oriented rock, Craig Dove captures a moment when soft rock, blue-eyed soul, and jazztinged pop converged effortlessly. This newly restored edition, licensed from the Numero Group catalog, brings the album back into circulation in faithful presentation, offering a rare chance to experience one of the era's most overlooked treasures in full depth. For fans of private-press soul, AOR deep cuts, and timeless songwriter albums that reveal more with every listen, Craig Dove is a long-overdue return."

LP version. Forest Green biovinyl. Includes Poster 30x60 cm, printed inner-sleeves. Tragic Magic brings together Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore, two of contemporary ambient, experimental and electronic music's most celebrated composers, for a unique collaboration at the Philharmonie de Paris, with extraordinary access to the Musée de la Musique's instrument collection, in partnership with the French label InFiné. The album features seven immersive, evocative compositions guided by the human spirit -- intimate, grounded in friendship, both earthly and cosmic -- and part of a greater continuum, reflecting the solace and transformative power of artistry across generations. Co-produced by Trevor Spencer (Fleet Foxes, Beach House), Tragic Magic was created in just nine days, a testament to the "musical telepathy" that has developed between Barwick and Lattimore over years of touring and friendship. Arriving in Paris from Los Angeles shortly after the 2025 wildfires, their sessions combined improvisation with the emotions and experiences they carried, in a setting both inspiring and deeply supportive. Lattimore selected harps tracing the instrument's evolution from 1728 to 1873, while Barwick chose several iconic analog synthesizers, including the Roland JUPITER and Sequential Circuits PROPHET-5. In freeform dialogue between voice and instrument, they create a meditation on tragedy, wonder, and the restorative power of shared experience. The duo, often joined by Spencer, also explored the city, sharing meals and visiting museums and landmarks, each encounter leaving an impression on their next session. The experience allowed them to work intimately with rare instruments, blending their personal sensibilities with centuries of history, resulting in music that honors the past while remaining a deeply authentic expression of the present. Throughout Tragic Magic, Barwick and Lattimore find something beyond themselves: a sense that while everything may not be okay, beauty persists. Their approach -- transforming life into music, observing, feeling, and creating -- continues a lineage of creative expression and visionary invention, embodied in the very instruments they employed for this project.

"Al Manfredi is the father of hip-hop producer Exile, and Blue Gold is his little-known West Coast rock masterpiece from 1973. Manfredi's dreams of securing a record deal with this album faded, but he spent the rest of his life recording music. This version of the album was overseen by Exile. Born into a musical family Al Manfredi started writing songs when he was child. As a teenager in 1965, he formed the Nuts & Bolts in the small beach town of San Clemente, California. Inspired by the Kinks, the Beatles and the Byrds, the group separated themselves from the pack by also performing original material written by Manfredi and band mate Mike Ingram. In late 1966 they changed their name to the Lost & Found and relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, where they cut a rare single, 'Don't Move Girl' b/w 'To Catch the Sun,' which now commands high coin from '60s garage collectors. When they returned to San Clemente in early 1967 their music had taken a more psychedelic direction. The Lost & Found were riding high that year, until tragedy struck. Ingram was found hanged under suspicious circumstances and soon after Lost & Found drummer Mike Ryer died of cancer at the age of 19. Heartbroken, Manfredi gave up on the band scene completely and moved to Garden Grove to teach at his family's music store. But alone, behind closed doors, he kept writing songs and working on his music, recording hours of tapes, often tracking all the instruments himself. In 1973 he chose six of his best songs, some of them written back in the Lost & Found days, and had them custom-pressed as an LP. Only a handful of copies were pressed, and most of these were sent out to various record companies in the hope of landing a deal. Despite the outstanding quality of the music, there were no takers. But decades later, collectors discovered the Al Manfredi album and hailed it a West Coast rock masterpiece. This little-known West Coast rock masterpiece was rediscovered and celebrated by Acid Archives founder Patrick Lundborg and others around the time that Manfredi died in 1995. This version of the album, overseen by Manfredi's son Exile, and with Manfredi's story told by Ugly Things' founder Mike Stax, presents the complete package of an incredible lost and found artist. Contains the album, as originally issued, on side A with unreleased music on side B."

Mats Gustafsson met Jan St. Werner in Berlin when they both performed with Peter Brötzmann and a group of prolific improvisers. Mats and Jan share a passion for performing not just inside rooms but also with them, activating space and shaping sound via diversion. Mats introduces Johan Berthling who adds complex bass structures to the nervous jitter of Mats' saxophone and pedals and Werner's digital machinery. The trio instantly agrees on sound as a physical material which can bend and move anywhere within seconds. With this material they establish musical forms which they immediately dissect and reassemble again. It's a nervous ride, a hyperactive conversation keen on detail and open to argument. Although IFANAME's sound is instantly graspable it is also hard to pin down. Nothing seems stable yet it lasts, holds like some kind of catchy glue and disappears as quickly as it came to life. IFANAME is question and concern. It is music as much as it is movement. It is attention, care, curiosity and disaster. Wherever IFANAME came from there is much more waiting ready to burst and reshape in front and inside of our ears.

"In the pantheon of classic free jazz, Noah Howard's The Black Ark looms large. Recorded at Bell Sound Studios in New York City in 1969 -- just prior to the alto saxophonist's relocation to Europe -- the album was eventually released in 1972. The Black Ark exhibits not only the power and imagination of Howard's playing, but also his breadth as a composer and bandleader. Listeners expecting unrelenting blasts of 'energy music' might be surprised to find a cohesion atypical of free jazz; amidst the wild, impassioned solos, Howard weaves in Latin rhythms and fat-bottomed grooves. The first side, consisting of 'Domiabra' and 'Ole Negro,' sets the album's tone. Both tracks sound as if they could have appeared on some of Blue Note's proto-spiritual jazz, groove-heavy releases -- evoking the likes of Horace Silver or Bobby Hutcherson -- before ceding the floor to the horn players' anarchic firepower. Trumpeter Earl Cross' guttural, vocal effects complement Doyle's take-no-prisoners approach, while the estimable combination of Muhammad Ali (Rashied's brother) on drums and Juma Sultan on congas adds an ever-shifting propulsion. The septet is rounded out by the enigmatic pianist Leslie Waldron, who anchors the group with imaginative accompaniment and occasional boppish flourishes. Every bit worthy of its reputation as an 'out-jazz' holy grail, The Black Ark only sounds better with age. It remains the ideal record to convert the remaining free-jazz skeptics."

2026 repress. "Sister Nancy's 'Bam Bam' on the Stallag Riddim is arguably the most licensed dancehall track for advertising and film backgrounds with multiple uses since 2000. The song has also displayed amazing lasting power for club DJs, with its instantly recognizable hooks. This album, originally released in 1982, showcased Sister Nancy for the world on the heels of a hit that has only gotten bigger over the decades. This is the first legitimate re-issue of the album, since the death of producer and techniques label founder, Winston Riley. Demand will be strong for this rare gem."

"This record shouldn't, strictly speaking, be possible at all. It's not just that Autechre's music is electronic and Shane Parish's is acoustic. It's not just that Autechre come from electro and techno, while Shane's solo guitar music is rooted in jazz, folk, and the blues. Those borders, between mediums and genres, are as porous as you want them to be. But Autechre are synonymous with difficulty, opacity, inscrutability -- known for unparseable rhythms, cryptic riffs, and shapeshifting timbres. Even on their early records, before they'd begun building out the mind-bending software systems that have defined the past quarter-century of their music, the duo of Sean Booth and Rob Brown were working at the very limits of their machines: eking melodies out of drum sounds, programming intricate polyrhythms of superhuman complexity, and writing sequences that defy attempts to decipher them. The origins of Autechre Guitar run deep. Translating shades of pewter and graphite into something resembling a 12-tone scale. And, most importantly, finding ways to distill Autechre's seemingly limitless details in ways that could be played by just 10 fingers without losing the soul of the song. The material on Autechre Guitar is drawn entirely from the 1990s. The reason is simple: That's the melodic golden age of Autechre, when Booth and Brown were writing hooks that would go down as some of the most enduring, and emotionally satisfying, in the past three decades of electronic music. Shane has done a remarkable job of capturing those melodies and translating them for the steel strings of his Taylor 214E-G. Listening to Shane, you intuit the way he's had to reach deep inside each song, working by feel alone, to grasp its contours and come back with something that communicates its ideas, even if it sounds all but unrecognizably different. Ultimately, Autechre Guitar works on multiple levels. It's a celebration of Autechre's music, shining a spotlight on the durability and flexibility of their songwriting. At the same time, it's an invitation to listen deep inside the music, to take part as active listeners in the process of translation and interpretation. And while it hardly needs to be said, it's an invitation to simply get lost in Shane's astonishingly fleet playing, which takes these songs of unfathomable difficulty and makes them seem practically effortless."

LP version. "Music in Continuous Motion, Bill Orcutt's latest entry into his 21st-century repertoire of quartet guitar music, pointedly steps away from the cut-and-paste constructivism of Music for Four Guitars into a sonic stratum that's yearningly melodic, resolutely human, and built for performance. Conceived for a 2026 NYC concert, Music in Continuous Motion shares the concision of its predecessor -- but rather than the discrete, mechanistic precision of Music for Four Guitars, the tracks on Music in Continuous Motion unify -- each song weaving four gleaming threads into the warp and weft of an evolving, complex texture that employs simple, repeating motifs to build new melodies from counterpoint itself. It accomplishes this in the most efficient manner possible: most of these 12 tracks hover around two-and-a- half minutes, each iterating first the substrate, then the melody and its variations, then slamming shut like a clockwork music box. Based on previous recorded evidence, Orcutt is fond of boundary conditions for his studio guitar records. Much of the time, his launchpad is obvious; with others, it's intentionally obscured. When recruiting me to write about each release, he might send me a clue. Although any given dispatch is a potential red herring, up until now, each has implied an Oulipian conceit (however obtuse) that at least somewhat determines the outcome. Thus, I was a bit surprised by his statement on Music in Continuous Motion. Whatever overarching form the recording process may have mapped out, the path of the finished album is explicitly poetic. Echoing its predecessor, the song titles, read in sequence, paint fleetingly-glimpsed forms -- but in contrast to the distant shapes described in Music For Four Guitars, the present narrative spotlights the dance of polygons momentarily grasped (and then lost) as they spin through space. Ultimately, the key difference between the albums (and what places Music in Continuous Motion in the realm of poetry) is its celebration of movement over immutability, of melody over form, of music as a hot wire to the heart rather than another upped ante in an arms race of inscrutability." --Tom Carter

'Luciano Cilio was born in Naples, Italy, in 1950. He studied music and architecture and, in the late '60s, collaborated with local artist Alan Sorrenti, American expat Shawn Phillips and various avant-garde theater groups. A virtuoso guitarist and self-taught composer, Cilio released only one LP before his untimely death at the age of 33. Dialoghi Del Presente (1977) is a work like no other, one that sounds both ancient and ahead of its time. Produced by Renato Marengo, it features a series of muted tableaux for strings, woodwinds, guitar, chorus, piano and percussion. Cilio carves out a space where subtle, repetitive phrases yield -- almost imperceptibly -- to breathtaking silence. As Jim O'Rourke writes, 'These recordings sound as if they were to please no one but himself; they feel self-contained, introspective, and determined. You can feel in the music a sort of necessity that can be rarely found, like in This Heat's debut or Nick Drake's Pink Moon.' While each subsequent 'quadro' grows slightly more abstract, Cilio draws the listener into an expansive, pastoral soundscape. The closing piece, 'Interludio,' begins with a plaintive guitar, which is joined by haunting strings and woodwinds before concluding, poignantly, as the album began, with Cilio and his guitar, alone once more. Superior Viaduct's edition reproduces the original sleeve design. Sourced from the original master tapes."

"Julius Hemphill's debut record, 1972's Dogon A.D., was self-produced for his Mbari imprint, and it was issued with a beautiful black-and-white cover. Very DIY. The label's name writ large along the bottom edge, like it was the band's name. It's a quartet record featuring Hemphill on alto and flute, with Baikida Carroll on trumpet, Abdul Wadud on cello, and Phillip Wilson on drums -- a classic jazz front line/rhythm section format, but nothing conventional about the way the music sounds. The long track -- from where the LP takes its title -- is one of the key epic statements of new jazz in the era. Among its remarkable distinctions, it manages to draw on Wilson's schizoid experience having been a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the first drummer for the Art Ensemble of Chicago, in making an 11/8 rhythm into a staggeringly funky thing of joy. Over the course of fourteen and a half minutes, Hemphill builds a nearly continuous solo, his spiritual blood brother Wadud sawing the cello with a deep blues soulfulness that is raw and mantra-like in its repetitive incantation. It feels right and wrong in equal measure, the theme carrying its own piquancy with honked barnyard dissonances and some contrary motion between the horns and string. Most of all, it takes its own sweet time, in no hurry to get anywhere in particular, but out for a righteous stroll." --John Corbett

"'Left Alone' is the legendary theme that Mal Waldron composed for Billie Holiday, for whom he was the last pianist. With Archie Shepp, another admirer of the singer and, like him, a great lover of duets, Waldron revisits some of the tunes associated with this unique voice. Modesty and emotion are present, and while the shadow of the great Billie hovers over this session, it is not the painful and tortured image that listeners often associate with her, but a benevolent figure who communicates to the saxophonist and the pianist an expressive force, a sweetness and a fullness of sound that go straight to the heart, and make a place for themselves there for a long time, right next to the most intimate emotions. Remarkable."

DVD is NTSC format. Region code 0. "Born Innocent: The Redd Kross Story is not your regular rock doc. After all, brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald were never a regular rock band. They were the group with the eleven-year-old bass player threading their way through the hardcore punk scene only to reappear, just a few years later, as masters of power pop hooks and bubblegum fun. They were Partridge Family fanatics who influenced the entire grunge crowd. They were long-haired punks with stage costumes that would have put even the boldest glam rockers to shame. These sound like contradictions, but Redd Kross is the unfettered expression of two brothers and their rock'n'roll dream so exclusively informed by a visceral love of music and pop culture that it couldn't help but defy genres and conventions, evolve without pause and survive both the music industry and a kidnapping. A line-up of talking heads straight outta Lollapalooza tells stories you would swear were made up. But Jeff and Steve McDonald were already larger than life when they were in their teens, and the adventures that followed reflect just that. Through more than four decades Redd Kross have been nothing but happily, outrageously and courageously themselves. Director Andrew Reich (Emmy Award-winning writer on the hit TV Show Friends) conducted dozens of new interviews and had unfettered access to home movies and archival footage featuring The Runaways, X, Nirvana and Guns N Roses and members of the Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, The Muffs, Melvins, Go-Gos and Black Flag. This is the definitive story of the most eclectic, unpredictable, thrilling and heartwarming band you never knew."

2026 repress. Pomegranates -- Nicolás Jaar's unofficial/alternative soundtrack to Sergei Parajanov's 1969 film The Color of Pomegranates -- was first released in 2015, and to highlight the 10-year anniversary Other People is reissuing the album on vinyl, with the first edition (a collaboration with the label Mana) having long been out of print. Longer and slower-releasing than his other albums, Pomegranates often parallels the cinematic epic on which it's based, with ideas pursued over long timelines and across dark landscapes, assembling elements and moods from the aesthetic and folkloric landscapes of Armenia. Jaar's identity is perceived within this, folding in his heritage as Palestinian and Chilean as he attempts to build a musical architecture outwards that frames as much of the mess and sprawl of life as possible; using a language that investigates the movement and fluctuation of his own artistic career and character similarly to the film's tracing of the coming of age of the young poet, Sayat-Nova. At times, Pomegranates feels profoundly intimate, as though looking through the archive of a friend's music and discovering the accent and common currency that lives within each of these tracks. Much of Jaar's most elegant and touching melodic work is nestled here, its power residing in its simplicity and willingness to speak to the heart and not the mind of the listener. In the text document included in the first freely distributed version of the album in 2015, Jaar writes that the album was conceived during a moment of change, and that the pomegranate became an icon that heralded that passage of time. The physical publication of Pomegranates closes one door whilst opening another, keeping promises and marking a significant point in the career of an artist who restlessly reinvents himself, with a document that illustrates a common language of lyricism, freedom, and emotional resonance linking his many paths and projects.

Grand Piano Gebrüder Stingl from 1916. The year is 2021. The piano is in the garden; the sun shines on it and rain falls on it. The piano cannot be tuned. Some keys work only partially, some not at all. It is Broken Piano. The first pieces for Broken Piano were recorded on this piano in 2021 and became part of the Fluxus editions Stolen Symphony (2023) and Keep Together (2024). The pieces for this edition were written and provided by Terry Riley and Milan Knízák. "Broken Piano," which was acquired by the Opening Performance Orchestra to make live and studio recordings, was the focus of both volumes of this edition between 2021 and 2023. Compositions for Broken Piano intended for Fluxus editions were recorded by Czech pianist Miroslav Beinhauer. During this time, other new works for Broken Piano were written by a variety of Fluxus and non-Fluxus composers. In the spring of 2022, the Opening Performance Orchestra and Broken Piano participated in an event hosted by Mieko Shiomi. This was a new version of her early work "Spatial Poem": it was a moving event, documentation of which was presented at the Aichi Triennale 2022 in Tokyo. During this performative event, consisting of moving any object, Broken Piano was moved from the village Vyzlovka to Unhost, where the SONO music studio is located. It is in the SONO studio that the new compositions for Broken Piano were recorded, written by Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Milan Knízák, Gordon Monahan, Elliot Sharp, Milan Gustar, and Yoon-Ji Lee, which form the content of this album. All the new compositions were recorded by pianist Miroslav Beinhauer.

2026 repress! West Virginia Snake Handler Revival "They Shall Take Up Serpents" marks the arrival of a landmark record, documenting the last, snake handling church in Appalachia. Featuring hillbilly rock guitars, trance-like rhythms, and howling vocals, this album was recorded 100% live and without overdubs by Grammy-award winning producer and author, Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Zomba Prison Project). The first release of American music ever by Sublime Frequencies, Brennan states, "As much as I've traveled around the globe to remote areas such as Comoros, the southeast Sahara or up-river in Suriname, few places have felt more foreign or 'exotic' than this part of Appalachia. The recording represents in many ways a companion and counterpoint -- the other side of the Deep South, so to speak -- to the music that was explored on the Parchman Prison Prayer albums. The Snake Handler album was an attempt to listen across that divide -- a divide that's never fully healed and continues to haunt and imperil the USA to this day." The recording took place during a two-plus hour Sunday service in the West Virginia mountains. Brennan states, "I'd sworn to stay far away from the snakes at the service, but instead they were waved in my face as they coiled in the preachers' hands, and I crouched down at the foot of the altar tending to the equipment. The pastor soon was bitten and blood splattered, pooling on the floor. The female parishioners hurriedly came to wipe up the mess, and it instantly became clear just what the rolls of paper towels stacked on the pulpit had been for. You can actually hear this moment transpire towards the end of the track 'Don't Worry It's Just a Snakebite (What Has Happened to This Generation?)'. The congregation leapt to its feet and a mini mosh-pit formed. The tag-team preachers huffed handkerchiefs soaked in strychnine, as they circled like aggro frontmen and an elderly worshiper held the flame of a candle to her throat, closing her eyes and swaying. The church PA blew out from the screams as a bonnet-wearing senior whacked away at a trap kit that dwarfed her. It was the most metal thing I'd ever seen, rendering Slayer mere kids play." The flock claim to be the first church that merged Rock and Roll with firebrand preaching -- that the music was stolen from them by Satan, that they are the originators. Given that snake handling ministries can be traced back to at least 1910, there might even be a faint something to the claim. The pastor's father and brother both died after being bitten by timber rattlesnakes, and the pastor himself suffered greatly from one a few years back -- his forearm swelling to twice its size and turning slime green. As a result, he fell unconscious and his forearm had to be sliced open from wrist to bicep to relieve the pressure. Nonetheless, Pastor Chris steadfastly claims that "Jesus is our anti-venom." "Some people think we're Devil worshippers, that we're a cult. But snake handling is only a small part of what we do." In the 1970s there were reportedly five-hundred snake churches throughout Appalachia, but now there is only one -- in West Virginia, the only state where serpent handling remains legal. It's estimated that in the past century more than one-hundred preachers have died from poisonous snakebites inflicted while leading these services. This includes the founder of the first snake handling flock, George Went Hensley, who was illiterate and once convicted of selling moonshine during the Prohibition era. His death was officially ruled a suicide due to his refusing medical treatment. The local county's population has dropped by more than 80% in the wake of the West Virginia coal industry's globalization gutting, and the area now leads the USA in drug-related deaths per capita while also being the poorest in the state. Within minutes of launching into trance-like states during the service featured on this album, both preachers became drenched in sweat. More than strict scripture, the preachers are gifted improvisers able to vent for hours at a time. Brennan states, "Pastor Chris joked, 'You definitely don't want to hear me sing.' But, in fact, he is a gifted vocalist with singular phrasing." Like so much of the most classic music ever made, it sounds as if it is emanating from the past and the future simultaneously -- some parallel universe where instead of discovering amphetamines, The Damned found God (or maybe both) and became born again. The vinyl edition includes a long 13-minute bonus track and features a four-page booklet sporting stunning photos of the congregation's rituals in action.

2026 repress. "Tortoise's self-titled debut incorporates many musical styles and influences and combines them into one very distinct sound. So distinct that sometime after the release of this record they became recognized as the leaders of a new musical movement. Tortoise exploits the recording studio, in that they utilize the recording process as a compositional tool or 'sixth member,' thus creating a boundless parameter in which to create music. Recorded at Idful Studios by John McEntire."

Pianist Pat Thomas, saxophonist Seymour Wright, and drummer Paul Abbott deliver a remarkable set of new music, each, re-imagining improvisation and synthetic ideas with acoustic and electronic tools. This monumental new suite Strata, Act (Joy Contemporary) released by We Jazz Records includes music recorded live in London and Zurich in summer 2023. Five tracks in total. complex, iterative whole that makes ideas live -- back into tradition/s and out, on, into an infinite future. In 2018 the trio recorded a remarkable 80-minute tribute to the late Cecil Taylor "Akisakila"/Attitudes of Preparation (Mountains, Oceans, Trees) vigorously re-visiting his 1973 Tokyo trio Akisakila recording. Re-convening five years later to celebrate that release they imagined a-new, expanding that attitude to history through connected lenses of the traditions of British electro-acoustic-mystery: from the live electronics of Tony Oxley's February Papers or Howard Riley's Synopsis, to Leviticus' Burial and Splash's Babylon, plus of course Derek Bailey's Domestic Jungle, and now up to their overlapping global-temporal experiments with, between them, Mark Fell, Anne Gills and RPBoo. Captured at London's Cafe OTO, the LP hears Thomas and XT expand their acoustic trio each with liquid (dry and wet) electronics, as real and imagined instrumentation. There are sounds of keys, sticks, reeds, pedals, (i)pads, plug-ins, body and breath and their potentials. There is also the unique energy, space and feel of OTO a sui generis ecology in which all three musicians have worked and learned since its doors opened in 2008. The 2CD takes its sub-title from the great drummer, and live electrician, Tony Oxley (also on playing with Cecil). Here the music grows across two nights (one per disc), synthetic, bionic expanding, evaporating, electric, charging through time in ways that renders "genre" indistinguishable, irrelevant and even impossible. This set is a multi-format document of some of the most adventurous, rare (and radical) creative musicians working today. Electronic-and-acoustic, real and imaginary, sounds, times, scales and proportions that extends out of and collapses into musical space in dialogue with past and future.

Restocked. R.I.P. Eliane Radigue (January 24, 1932 ? February 23, 2026). 1998 release. Voted one of 1998's top 15 Records of the Year in Modern Composition by the writers and critics of The Wire, Trilogie de la Mort is a work in three parts for anolog Arp synthesizer. The first third of the work, Kyema, is inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead and invokes the six intermediate states that constitute the existential continuity of the being. Kailasha, the second chapter, is structured on an imaginary pilgrimage around Mt. Kailash, one of the most sacred mountains in the Himalayas. Koumé makes up the last part of the trilogy and emphasizes the transcendence of death.

2026 restock. The Tony Williams Lifetime's Emergency! is a furious, stunning, seminal album. In 1969, it's explosive sound divided critics in both jazz and rock but is now rightly regarded as groundbreaking. A musical statement so bold and irreverent that it was revolutionary. With Emergency!, provocative percussionist Tony Williams unified the most vital sounds of the era and galvanized the creation of jazz fusion. A sprawling double-LP that shattered the boundaries between jazz and rock, it forged fresh frontiers by unleashing dense, courageous and fantastically mysterious music. The group was founded by Tony Williams, a member of Miles Davis's radical 1960s quintet, out of his desire to fuse the influences of modern jazz and rock music. To effectively meld the scorching bop of Coltrane with the raging rock of Hendrix. Like all the very best records, Emergency! takes multiple listens for your brain and body to decipher everything going on, to truly process and appreciate the details that our senses are throwing at us. It's a mesmerizing, rough sound yet the intuitive interplay of all three musicians is super-tight. The tunes are strung out and jamming but retain a tight rhythmic focus. The incendiary title track immediately presents jazz-rock's chaotic birth. After Williams's ominous snare-roll signals the brewing storm, the snarling band blasts its way through the gate in truly breathtaking fashion, fuzzed-up wahed-out guitar riffs vying for prominence with gnarled, insistent organ. Thrillingly, Williams manages to both acrobatically crash over every element of his drum kit while keeping the whole groove undeniably funky. "Beyond Games" is a gloriously volatile freeform, featuring Williams' bugged-out vocals, whilst the 12-minute "Where" is another deep, wild jam. With the buoyant "Vashkar", we begin to experience jazz-rock's many angles; imaginative melodics, taut dynamics and as torrent of searing heat. Perhaps the most economical track on Emergency!, it's the most instant. The laconic "Via the Spectrum Road", a brilliant pop-psych tune, was sampled by Showbiz & AG on their classic debut LP. It oscillates between a tranquil funk groove and strutting improv interludes. The pyrotechnic jam "Spectrum" wakes things up again with pure, molten jazz lava and crazy soloing from all involved. A breathtaking, kaleidoscopic 13-minute cycle through ferocious noise, "Sangria For Three" is a sublimely frenetic detonation of distilled (acid) jazz rock. Closer "Something Spiritual" finishes this jaw-dropping set with a driving, unrelenting heavy guitar and organ freakout, backed high in the mix by Williams's untamed funk before unsettled dissonance rides you out. Mastered for vinyl by Simon Francis and cut by Cicely Ralston for Alchemy at AIR Studios.

LP version. Color vinyl. "Forty or so Damaged Bug tunes from the past seven years were orphaned/unfinished, which is pretty rare for me. I just kept having other things going on and life kept getting in the way. And frankly, the songs were all over the place so I didn't see a thread in there, but in light of current events in the world, I feel like it's every artist's calling to construct personal messages cloaked in a moments of escapism. That's what this record is for me -- was something to clear the decks a little bit in my studio and relax my mind and keep the wolf from the door. It's a bit of a joyous/sad record dealing with hope and forgiveness, two things which I hope end up more in my life. It's abstract and poppy, fried and sugary. It exactly how I feel at the moment fried and skewed. Good luck out there and I hope this turns off the torrent for you, for a moment." --John Dwyer

2026 repress. Six years after the release of the A Parade, In The Place I Sit, The Floating World (& All Its Pleasures) EP on anno Records, Brian Leeds, aka Huerco S., returns to the Loidis project with his debut album One Day on Incienso.

2026 restock. Le Tres Jazz Club present a reissue of Marion Brown's Le Temps Fou (Musique du film de Marcel Camus), originally released in 1969. Marion Brown, who moved to Europe two years earlier than 1969, and records, in the legendary Parisian studio Davout, the soundtrack of the movie by Marcel Camus entitled Le Temps Fou. The movie starred Nino Ferrer was out in 1970 under the title Un été sauvage. Fallen into oblivion, Le Temps Fou was printed in very few copies and is almost impossible to find in its original pressing. Personnel: Marion Brown - alto sax, bells; Gunter Hampel - vibes, bass clarinet, tree bells; Ambrose Jackson - trumpet cow bells, tambour; Barre Phillips - contra basse, castanetes, whistle; Steve McCall - drums, triangle, tambour; Alain Corneau - claves, cow bells.
As featured in Now Jazz Now: 100 Essential Free Jazz & Improvisation Recordings (1960-80)