Browse by Label: ROARATORIO

Artist:	MUSIC ENSEMBLE, THE
Title:
Label:	ROARATORIO
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	ROAR 003CD

"The first documentation of this important free improvising group, featuring Roger Baird, Billy Bang, Malik Baraka, Daniel Carter, William Parker, and Herb Kahn. Existing during the heyday of NYC's Loft Scene, their name has often been cited as a crucial stage in the development of its members -- the seeds of such current ensembles as Other Dimensions In Music and Test can be found here -- but their singular music has gone largely unheard, save by those who were present at their concerts. This CD has been compiled from archival tapes recorded by Roger Baird; one complete performance from Brooklyn's Kingsborough College, on 24 April 1974, and excerpts from a concert at the Holy Name School Auditorium, on 15 February 1975. Packaged in a mini-LP gatefold sleeve, with liner notes by Parker, Bang, Baird, and Carter, paintings by Marilyn Sontag, and a reproduction of the poster for one of the shows, this is the recording debut of one of jazz's greatest 'lost' groups."

Artist:	CAREI THOMAS FEEL FREE ENSEMBLE
Title:	Mining Our Bid'ness
Label:	ROARATORIO
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	ROAR 004CD

"A revelatory debut album by a 64 year old pianist/composer may beg the question: where has Carei Thomas been all this time? Born in a culturally diverse neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Thomas cut his musical teeth in Chicago during a particularly fertile period for that city: gigging with Sun Ra as an improvising vocalist in 1959-60, joining up with the AACM for one hot minute in 1966, co-founding a group called The Light with Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre (which also included Jerome Cooper and Wadada Leo Smith), and forming the compositional concepts that would provide a springboard for tireless exploration in the ensuing decades. Thomas moved to Minneapolis in 1972, where, in the mode of Horace Tapscott, he eschewed the industry-driven career path, choosing instead to work within the Twin Cities' community. Recorded live with a group that features, most notably, the unfettered talents of Curlew saxophonist George Cartwright, Mining Our Bid'ness represents the range of Thomas' no-boundaries Feel Free Ensemble, running the gamut from gorgeous Ellingtonian ballads to combustible free jazz testifying."

Artist:	CURLEW
Title:	Gussie
Label:	ROARATORIO
Format:	LP
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	ROAR 005LP

"On a hot Minneapolis night in the summer of 2001, Curlew played a scorching gig at the now-defunct Gus Lucky's Gallery. Gussie documents that evening: the veteran improvising group dispensed with their compositions altogether and took an eminently successful walk along the free-improv tightrope. With a lineup featuring George Cartwright (saxophones), Davey Williams (guitar), Chris Parker (piano), Fred Chalenor (bass), and Bruce Golden (percussion). A limited edition of 436 copies, with handpainted covers by Anne Elias."

Artist:	OLIVEROS & REYNOLS, PAULINE
Title:	The Minexcio Connection: Live! At The Rosendale Cafe
Label:	ROARATORIO
Format:	LP
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	ROAR 006LP

"One of the most unexpected yet fruitful partnerships of recent years: in the mid-1990s, Pauline Oliveros, electronic music pioneer and sage of the environmental drone, began working with Reynols, the prolific and resolutely undefinable Argentinian group. Their first joint effort sent Oliveros' music through the rigours of Reynols' heavily processed studio treatments; The Minexcio Connection: Live! At The Rosendale Cafe finds them collaborating on-stage in real time. Recorded in August 2000 during Reynols' first trek through North America, they offered up a version of 'Six For New Time' (originally composed by Oliveros for Sonic Youth's Goodbye 20th Century LP), along with idiosyncratic throat-singing and hypnotic dream/dronescapes. The venue may have been a small cafe in rustic upstate New York, but the sonic results sound like emanations from the deepest of Deep Listening caves under the earth." Limited stock.

Artist:	FUCCLILLO, JEFF
Title:	Disturbed Strings
Label:	ROARATORIO
Format:	LP
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	ROAR 007LP

"In the spring of 1998, guitarist Jeff Fuccillo (Irving Klaw Trio, Wham-O, Hochenkeit) met avant-folk guru John Fahey while opening for his trio at a gig in Portland, Oregon. Fahey was sufficiently impressed, and booked studio time to record Fuccillo for his label. On the day of the session, Fuccillo arrived prepared to make a solo acoustic guitar album. To his surprise, Fahey had prepared a pile of samples --random snatches of music, all manner of sound effects -- and without warning, began shooting them out into the studio room through the monitors, effecting a guerrilla collaboration of sorts. Disturbed Strings captures the highlights of that day: veering from hardscrabble stringrattling to modal melodicism, the album is ample testament to Fuccillo's wide-ranging inventiveness as an improvising guitarist, as well as a window into an aspect of Fahey's artistry not previously represented on record. An essential document of the New Weird America underground. Released in a limited edition of 500 copies, with artwork by Fahey and Judith Lindbloom."

Artist:	BRODER & GEORGE CARTWRIGHT, ANDREW
Title:	Andrew Broder & George Cartwright
Label:	ROARATORIO
Format:	LP
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	ROAR 008LP

"Andrew Broder (aka Lex Records/Ninja Tune recording artist Fog) and George Cartwright (leader of the long-running avant/jazz group Curlew, as well as the GloryLand PonyCat trio) can each lay claim to some serious barrier-crashing &genre-splicing within their respective bodies of work. Together on a Minneapolis stage in February 2004, they carried on the cross-pollination even further: utilizing an array of saxophones, laptops, turntables, keyboards, and various effects, this freely-improvised set touches on familiar territory from their pasts & points a way to future possibilities. By turns lyrical and abstract, meditative and unsettling, Broder and Cartwright create imaginary soundtracks for pirate-broadcast TV documentaries on phenomena you never knew existed."

Artist:	KEITH, RODD
Title:	Saucers In the Sky
Label:	ROARATORIO
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	ROAR 010CD

"Rodney Keith Eskelin, aka Rodd Keith, aka Rod Rogers, would've certainly found the recognition during his lifetime that his talent demanded, if he hadn't chosen to work in the lowest depths of the music industry: the 'send us your lyrics' field, known today as the song-poem genre. Saucers In the Sky gathers together twenty-six previously uncollected Rodd Keith gems from the hundreds upon hundreds of songs that he recorded before he leapt from a highway overpass in 1974. It would be inaccurate to call this a collection of forgotten pop classics. 'Forgotten' implies that they were known in the first place. Outside of the aspiring lyricists who bankrolled the proceedings, plus a few of their friends and relations, none of Rodd Keith's records registered the slightest blip on the musical radar of their time. The irony runs deep: the song-poem business was a stylus' breadth away from being an outright scam, capitalizing on the dreams of would-be songwriters and filling their heads with visions of breakout hits and fame and fortune. In reality, if the lyrics themselves weren't unwieldy or strange enough to hobble any chances of entering the charts with a bullet, the assembly line production style of the recording insured that the majority of the songs were musically undistinguished. The best of Rodd Keith's work, however, easily transcends its lowly, no-hope origins, and therein lies the kicker: if the pressing runs for songs like 'Magic In Her Eyes' or 'Go Go Girlie' had broken the triple digit mark, or found their first point of sale in a Sam Goody rather than a thrift shop, they could've undoubtedly attained some measure of the popular success that their hapless creators were led to believe would follow. And while such tunes as 'Ravens' or 'Sawdust' were too lyrically bent for Billboard glory, they remain prime examples of Rodd's brilliance as a singer, composer and arranger. Saucers In the Sky also includes two never-before-released tracks: a cover of 'Here Comes The Judge' from a soul-soundalike session, and 'Get On My Honda, Rhonda,' written as a birthday gift for Rodd's best friend's son. Packaged in a mini-LP gatefold sleeve, with liner notes from Del Casher, inventor of the wah-wah pedal and guitarist on many of Rodd's early recordings, and Stacey Keith, Rodd's daughter."

Artist:	MCPHEE, JOE
Title:	Soprano
Label:	ROARATORIO
Format:	LP
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	ROAR 012LP

"A document of Joe McPhee's first solo concert devoted exclusively to the straight horn, Soprano is both a companion volume to his previous LP for Roaratorio (the critically lauded Everything Happens For A Reason) and a follow-up to his classic album Tenor, which raised the bar for solo saxophone music over 30 years ago. Recorded live in St. George's Church at the Guelph Jazz Festival in 1998, Soprano was inspired by Pauline Oliveros' 'Deep Listening' performance at the venue the previous year. The acoustics of the church provided a natural web of reverberation and delay, and compose as much a part of the sonic palette as Michael Overhage's farmhouse did for Tenor. McPhee's art is informed by the head and the heart in equal measures, and Soprano is thoughtful, passionate music from one of jazz's most eloquent practitioners. A limited edition of 500 copies on 180 gram vinyl, with a Judith Lindbloom silkscreen print on rice paper and liner notes by McPhee and Oliveros."

Artist:	KNIFE WORLD
Title:	Knife World
Label:	ROARATORIO
Format:	LP
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	ROAR 013LP

"Formed in Minneapolis in 2004, Knife World have converted many unwary bystanders into true believers through their frenetic gigs in underground venues and the occasional club. The band worships at the Riff Temple, swapping pomposity for a mischievous intelligence. Jon Nielsen sounds as if he's scrambling to play all the guitar parts of some skewed arena-rock mash-up at once, while drummer Josh Journey-Heinz avoids the obvious backbeats by carving out the spaces around them instead. Together they have a fuller sound than most groups with more appendages. A self-released cassette and a CD-R served up hints and guesses, but now their debut LP comes along to deliver the goods. Packaged in a pleasantly eye-gouging 3D gatefold jacket, with glasses mounted into the vinyl."

Artist:	METZGER, PAUL
Title:	Gedanken Splitter
Label:	ROARATORIO
Format:	LP
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	ROAR 014LP

"Paul Metzger continues to pile up the plaudits from critics and peers alike for his virtuosic string-slinging, gaining notice through his CD on Chairkickers and his split LP with Ben Chasny and Chris Corsano on Roaratorio. Metzger's modified banjo is tricked out with additional sympathetic raga strings, although the compositions on Gedanken Splitter are informed by much more than Eastern drone music alone. Recorded in the same period as 2007's Deliverance on Locust Music, this is a more jagged and aggressive (although no less accessible) affair. Metzger winds these improvisations around thornier threads than on his previous releases, and while never turning completely abstract, Gedanken Splitter moves even further away from anything resembling typical banjo fare. This is mesmerizing and singular playing."

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