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ROKURE 004LP
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Otoroku present the first vinyl reissue of Louis Moholo Octet's Spirits Rejoice!, originally released in 1978 on Ogun Recordings. One of the most legendary free jazz records ever produced, Spirits Rejoice! is a high achievement in the movement of the era as it soars beyond oppression with a raucous and spiritually uplifting surge of movement and melody. Featuring Harry Miller, Johnny Dyani, Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, Nick Evans, Radu Malfatti, and Kenny Wheeler, this is former Blue Note artist Louis Moholo's first album under his own name and is a classic example of the cross-pollination between South African and British players. Mongezi Feza's 'You Ain't Gonna Know Me 'Cos You Think You Know Me" alone is enough to make your life a better place. Made with permission and in association with Ogun Recordings. Features an exact reproduction of the original artwork and liner notes, along with new liner notes from Matthew Wright. Remastered by Giuseppe IIelasi. High gloss sleeve; edition of 1000.
From Matthew Wright's new liner notes: "The South African melodies, now so familiar, were wholeheartedly taken on board by the individual musicians, their unity of purpose mirroring the belief in the strength of the collective. Stunning solos, often close to the edge, feature throughout -- Evan Parker and Keith Tippett on 'Shine Wherever You Are'; the contrasting trombone styles of Nick Evans and Radu Malfatti on 'You Ain't Gonna Know Me...'; the octet sounding like a full big band; and behind them, the relentlessly rhythmic urgency of the piano, bass and drums. Add to this Kenny Wheeler's moving and all-encompassing trumpet on the elegiac 'Amaxesha Osizi' and the joyous flamboyancy of 'Wedding Hymn' with Parker's relatively straight-ahead tenor and Tippett's dextrous piano solo over a bed of riffing horns, (fast) walking bass lines and a supreme sense of swing. Louis' early hero, Big Sid Catlett, would have loved it!"
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2CD
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ROKU 020CD
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Charles Gayle is a saxophonist, pianist, sometimes a clown and radical musical performer wrapped into the body of a humble person living in Downtown Manhattan since the 1960s. As this set attests to, it is sometimes hard to predict what he will do on stage... In all his musical (and personal) life Charles Gayle has remained outside of any form of mainstream, carving his own singular path. There is no player on the scene today with the emotional wallop of Charles Gayle. John Edwards is a true virtuoso whose staggering range of techniques and boundless musical imagination have redefined the possibility of the double bass and dramatically expanded its role, whether playing solo or with others. Perpetually in demand, he has played with Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, Joe McPhee, Peter Brötzmann, Mulatu Astatke, and many others. Ubiquitous, diverse and constantly creative, drummer Mark Sanders has worked with a host of renowned musicians including Derek Bailey, Henry Grimes, Mathew Shipp, Roswell Rudd, in duo and quartets with Wadada Leo Smith and trios with Sirone and William Parker. Here OTOroku present a double-CD set documenting the two very special sets delivered on November 15th, 2017 at Cafe Oto, Dalston, London. In classic ecstatic fashion one would expect from these three stalwarts of blazing transcendence, these two sets swerve from the sublime to the this is an exquisite document of one of the most exciting trios operating today. Mini gatefold sleeve; edition of 500.
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ROKU 021CD
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This recording from the earlier years of Cafe Oto documents the impossible pairing of four contemporary giants. It's the reason the venue opened in the first place, for miraculous one-off groupings like this. "The magic of the first minutes -- an alto solo by Joe McPhee of true purity -- soft-spoken, masterful and accomplished -- brought back to mind the blissful Coleman/Haden duet last year at the Royal Festival Hall. 'Ornette gave me freedom to move in a certain way,' said McPhee. He searched hesitantly and carefully for his words, all the more surprising from such an articulate musical (or, as he might say 'muse-ical') practitioner and campaigner. Coleman's 80th birthday coincided with McPhee's stint at Cafe Oto. McPhee and his co-musicians delivered an intense performance which was both creative and restrained. With Evan Parker's tenor in tow -- a collaboration going back to the late '70s -- and Lol Coxhill, sitting with head bowed intently, a soprano master -- it could have gone anywhere, yet they worked off each other, often in the higher registers, building up almost bird-call like interactions and trills. Earlier, Chris Corsano's drumming presented a dense bedrock for McPhee to play against, and his solo spell was a crisp exercise in sonic curiosity. McPhee picked up his soprano mid-way through the second set, heightening the lyricism of the three saxophones. Then, being a devotee of Don Cherry, he switched to pocket trumpet, allowing him to interject, and punctuate the concentrated sound layers built up by the quartet, and lead the music out through a different door." --Geoff Winston, London Jazz News. Recorded March 10th 2010, this is also a document of the only time Lol Coxhill and Joe McPhee shared the stage. The recording is a little rough, but hey, so was your birth! Mini gatefold sleeve; edition of 500.
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ROKURE 003LP
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Otoroku presents a reissue of Evan Parker's The Snake Decides, originally released in 1986. One of the final Incus releases and one that was written up in The Penguin Guide to Jazz as an essential document of modern music, Otoroku releases it as a first ever vinyl re-issue. Featuring four solos recorded in 1986 in St. Paul's Church, Oxford by the late Michael Gerzon, The Snake Decides is a groundbreaking example how far the language of a particular instrument can be taken. From Brian Morton's new liner notes: "The Snake Decides attracts a certain array of adjectives: intense, radical, fearsome, hypnotic, virtuosic, and occasionally allows a more ambitious reviewer to avoid platitude by talking more specifically about 32nd harmonics, circular breathing, multiphonics and Gerson's exact choice and placement of microphones. But this misses a point, too. Listening to this record, either for the first or the fortieth time, is an arousing experience." Remastered by Giuseppe Ielasi and housed in a reverse board sleeve, this is the ultimate document of one of the most important recordings in all Parker's extensive and exploratory catalog. Edition of 500.
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ROKURE 002LP
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Following on from the re-issue of Topography of the Lungs, Otoroku is proud to follow up with another legendary free-improvised document, this one from the duo of Derek Bailey and Evan Parker, originally released on the INCUS label in 1975. "The London Concert is one of those rare recordings that capture musicians at a special moment of confluence, a moment when procedures are proving fruitful and before practice has hardened into dogma, when different visions are not yet turned into position papers (insert your list here). There are clearly moments in the London Concert when things that have not precisely happened before emerge from one partner, are caught and supported by the other in a way that, too, is still new 40 some years on, and which prods the initiator to hold and develop a particular line with the clear support of the other." -- Stuart Broomer. The London Concert comes in a limited edition of 500 copies printed on reverse board with printed inner sleeve and newly commissioned liner notes by Stuart Broomer.
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ROKURE 001LP
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2018 repress. OTOROKU caps off the 2014 celebrations of saxophonist Evan Parker's 70th birthday with a vinyl reissue of The Topography of the Lungs, by Parker, guitarist Derek Bailey, and percussionist Han Bennink -- Parker's first recording as a leader. Originally released in 1970, this was the first LP issued by Incus, the label that Parker founded with Bailey and drummer Tony Oxley. This reissue has been produced from an original vinyl pressing from Parker's archives, carefully transcribed and restored by Andreas (Lupo) Lubich at Calyx Mastering, Berlin.
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ROKU 013LP
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LP version. Japanese bluesman Kan Mikami is nothing less than an unalloyed force of nature; a skin-shredding blast of frozen wind from the poor, rural north of Japan that he calls home. In the late 1960s, like thousands of other Japanese young people Mikami made his way to Tokyo in search of a life different from that of his parents. Since then he has forcefully carved out a space for himself in the culture as a modernist poet, a raging folk singer, an author, an actor, an engaging TV personality, and one of Japan's most uniquely powerful performers. For most of Mikami's career as a singer, he has performed solo; just him and his electric guitar against the world, creating jagged A-minor vamps to drive along the surreal wisdom of his lyrics. But he's equally at home in more demanding improvisational contexts such as those provided here by John Edwards on bass and Alex Nielson on drums. Their dense propulsive textures seem to spur on Mikami, his voice arcing powerfully into fragmented spaces, his guitar darting, colliding, shedding jagged and angular splinters of sound. A pulsing, raging maelstrom of serrated-edged energy. Gruff, rough, honest and very, very real.
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ROKU 013CD
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Japanese bluesman Kan Mikami is nothing less than an unalloyed force of nature; a skin-shredding blast of frozen wind from the poor, rural north of Japan that he calls home. In the late 1960s, like thousands of other Japanese young people Mikami made his way to Tokyo in search of a life different from that of his parents. Since then he has forcefully carved out a space for himself in the culture as a modernist poet, a raging folk singer, an author, an actor, an engaging TV personality, and one of Japan's most uniquely powerful performers. For most of Mikami's career as a singer, he has performed solo; just him and his electric guitar against the world, creating jagged A-minor vamps to drive along the surreal wisdom of his lyrics. But he's equally at home in more demanding improvisational contexts such as those provided here by John Edwards on bass and Alex Nielson on drums. Their dense propulsive textures seem to spur on Mikami, his voice arcing powerfully into fragmented spaces, his guitar darting, colliding, shedding jagged and angular splinters of sound. A pulsing, raging maelstrom of serrated-edged energy. Gruff, rough, honest and very, very real.
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ROKU 018CD
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Keiji Haino, one of the foremost exponents of the Japanese avant-garde, always provides a masterclass in constantly shifting improvisation. John Butcher is a saxophonist of rare grace and power, who has expanded the vocabulary of the saxophone far beyond the conventions of jazz and other musics, to encompass a staggering range of multi-phonics, overtones, percussive sounds, and electronic feedback. Haino and Butcher met when Butcher opened for Fushitsusha at the show Cafe Oto arranged at St. John, Hackney -- five years ago. In 2016, they were invited to play two duo concerts -- at The Empty Gallery in Hong Kong and at Cafe Oto in London. Otoroku present the audio documentation of their first UK meeting. Recorded live at Cafe Oto in July 2016, the results are an uncompromising milieu of swirling sound played out as a total union of these two legendary performers. Haino's blues drenched guitar entices skittering notes from Butcher's sax playing as numerous sonic clues unravel over the course of this unique and compelling journey. Personnel: Keiji Haino - vocal, guitars, etc.; John Butcher - saxophones and feedback.
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ROKU 018LP
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LP version. Keiji Haino, one of the foremost exponents of the Japanese avant-garde, always provides a masterclass in constantly shifting improvisation. John Butcher is a saxophonist of rare grace and power, who has expanded the vocabulary of the saxophone far beyond the conventions of jazz and other musics, to encompass a staggering range of multi-phonics, overtones, percussive sounds, and electronic feedback. Haino and Butcher met when Butcher opened for Fushitsusha at the show Cafe Oto arranged at St. John, Hackney -- five years ago. In 2016, they were invited to play two duo concerts -- at The Empty Gallery in Hong Kong and at Cafe Oto in London. Otoroku present the audio documentation of their first UK meeting. Recorded live at Cafe Oto in July 2016, the results are an uncompromising milieu of swirling sound played out as a total union of these two legendary performers. Haino's blues drenched guitar entices skittering notes from Butcher's sax playing as numerous sonic clues unravel over the course of this unique and compelling journey. Personnel: Keiji Haino - vocal, guitars, etc.; John Butcher - saxophones and feedback.
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ROKU 019LP
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Recorded live at OTO in May 2015, The Elephant Clock Of Al Jazari comprises four typically genre-defying and sonically dexterous pieces from one of the UK's best pianists. Pat Thomas began playing piano at the age of eight. He studied classical music and reggae was an early interest. Thomas was inspired to take up jazz after seeing legendary pianist Oscar Peterson on television. By 1979, Thomas was performing seriously as an improviser. In 1980, he became a member of Oxford-based group Ghosts with Pete McPhail and Matt Lewis. He has worked with Mike Cooper, Jimmy Carl Black, Thurston Moore, Mats Gustafsson, Evan Parker, Alan Silva, John Zorn, and more. Pat Thomas received the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers in 2014. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Edition of 500.
In Thomas's own words: "The title for this album, was inspired by the incredible automatic water clock invented by Badi' al-Zaman ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari. Al Jazari refers to the fact he was born in Al Jazira which lies between the Tigris and the Euphrates in what is now Northern Iraq. Badi al Zaman means prodigy of the age. He is known by historians of technology as the father of modern robotics. The Elephant Clock at seven meters high is a testament to his engineering genius, it utilizes Greek water raising technology, combined with an Indian elephant, Egyptian phoenix, Arabian figures, Persian carpet and Chinese Dragons celebrating the diversity of cultures in the world. This and other marvels of engineering can be found in his Book of the Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices translated by Donald Hill (Pakistan Hijra Council). Over 50 devices are mentioned. Amongst them the first analog computer, his remarkable Castle Clock, however, the debt the world owes this Muslim genius is found in his remarkable water raising devices, particularly water raising device number '4' where for the first time a crank connecting rod system is used. The crank is considered to be the most important single mechanical device after the wheel, by 1206 this is found fully developed in Jazari`s machines predating Francesco di Giorgio Martini by three centuries. 'For Al Haytham' is dedicated to the great polymath genius who wrote the great book on vision, the first person to give us a true understanding of how we see. 'Lubb' is an Arabic word meaning innermost consciousness whilst to conclude proceedings 'Done' is loosely based on a well-known standard."
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ROKU 001CD
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Originally released on vinyl in 2012. Café OTO is a concert venue operating in Dalston, East London, specializing in various strains of avant-music: free-jazz, song, electronics, etc. OTO have been professionally recording various shows on and off since the venue opened in 2008. The Worse the Better is a recording of the stunning first set performed by the trio of Peter Brötzmann, Steve Noble and John Edwards at Café OTO in January 2010 during Brötzmann's first residency at the venue. It was also the first time this trio had played together. The concert was recorded at Café OTO by Shane Browne and mastered by Andrea "Lupo" Lubich at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.
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ROKU 001LP
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2016 repress. Originally released on vinyl in 2012. Cafe OTO is a concert venue operating in Dalston, East London, specializing in various strains of avant-music: free-jazz, song, electronics, etc. OTO have been professionally recording various shows on and off since the venue opened in 2008. The Worse the Better is a recording of the stunning first set performed by the trio of Peter Brötzmann, Steve Noble and John Edwards at Cafe OTO in January 2010 during Brötzmann's first residency at the venue. It was also the first time this trio had played together. The concert was recorded at Cafe OTO by Shane Browne and mastered by Andrea "Lupo" Lubich at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.
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ROKU 016CD
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Sold out, awaiting 2017 repress? Song Sentimentale, featuring unique material on each format, was recorded on January 27-29, 2015, at Cafe OTO. Outside of the 2CD release Never Too Late But Always Too Early (2003) there has been scant documentation of one of the most dynamic pairings in all free jazz. Song Sentimentale rectifies this anomaly with a full-blown audio account of the breathtaking communicative heights obtained by these three legends of the living. Over three nights in January 2015, the trio seduced a winter-worn crowd with the kind of organic interplay only these three can conjure. Warm and urgent, the material unveils a wide range of techniques and emotions. This is music on the edge of itself; a living, breathing and existing force documented for repeated visits. Peter Brötzmann - tenor saxophone, B flat clarinet, tarogato; William Parker - double bass, guembri, shakuhachi, shenai; Hamid Drake - drums, frame drum, voice. Recorded Live at Cafe OTO on the 27th, 28th and 29th of January 2015.
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ROKU 016LP
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LP version. Song Sentimentale, featuring unique material on each format, was recorded on January 27-29, 2015, at Cafe OTO. Outside of the 2CD release Never Too Late But Always Too Early (2003) there has been scant documentation of one of the most dynamic pairings in all free jazz. Song Sentimentale rectifies this anomaly with a full-blown audio account of the breathtaking communicative heights obtained by these three legends of the living. Over three nights in January 2015, the trio seduced a winter-worn crowd with the kind of organic interplay only these three can conjure. Warm and urgent, the material unveils a wide range of techniques and emotions. This is music on the edge of itself; a living, breathing and existing force documented for repeated visits. Peter Brötzmann - tenor saxophone, B flat clarinet, tarogato; William Parker - double bass, guembri, shakuhachi, shenai; Hamid Drake - drums, frame drum, voice. Recorded Live at Cafe OTO on the 27th, 28th and 29th of January 2015.
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ROKU 014LP
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Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Nargilә Mehtiyeva aka Aşıq Nargilә has been playing saz (long-necked lute) and singing since the age of 15. Fluent in Azerbaijani, Georgian, and Russian, Nargilә represents the cosmopolitan heritage of old Tbilisi, a city once known as a meeting point for multilingual aşıq bards who would travel through the region serving as conduits for news, ideas, music, and culture. Nargilә is currently the only female aşıq living and performing in the ethnic Azeri region of Georgia, and has been teaching the art to new generations. This is a recording of Aşıq Nargilә's first concert in the UK, recorded live at Cafe OTO on October 18, 2014, by James Dunn. The pieces performed are named after the traditional saz aşıq havası (melodies) on which they are based. Lyrics are taken from destan epics, regional poetry, and Nargilә's own lyrics to match the rhyming patterns of these melodies. "Yanıq Kerem" and "Ruhani" are both instrumental pieces that depict their own stories without words. "Ay Ceyranım" is a popular song performed at weddings across Azerbaijan. Aşıq Nargilә Mehtiyeva: saz (long-necked lute) and söz (vocals).
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ROKU 017LP
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The full recording of the first meeting between Bill Orcutt (USA) and Okkyung Lee (South Korea). Individually these players have focused on an idiosyncratic approach to their chosen instruments and technique. Okkyung is one of the most singular voices to compromise the cello's classical origin, while Orcutt has spent many years developing a unique abstraction of traditional guitar blues. Live at Cafe OTO is an uncompromising combination of these individual elements and an ecstatic improvised assault of mind and sense. Okkyung Lee: cello. Bill Orcutt: guitar.180-gram LP in matte sleeve with artwork by Bill Orcutt. Limited edition of 500.
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ROKU 015LP
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Born in 1964, Yukihiro Isso is a Japanese Noh flutist (hayashikata fuekata) from a family that has been playing this instrument since the 16th century. He received his initial instruction in flute playing from his father, Yukimasa Isso, and performed on the Noh stage for the first time at the age of nine. Beginning in his middle school years, he began listening to a variety of different kinds of music and studying new instruments including the recorder and piano. An acclaimed performer of classical Noh repertoire, Isso is also an accomplished improviser and has performed with the likes of Cecil Taylor, Peter Brötzmann, and John Zorn. Born in 1946, Roger Turner grew up among the Canterbury musical life of the 1960s with a strong jazz foundation. Since 1974 his work has been concentrated on exploring a more personal percussion language through the processes of improvisation. Solo work; collaborations with experimental rock musics and open-form song; extensive work with dance, film, and visual art; involvements in numerous jazz-based ensembles; and workshop residencies have formed part of that development. Takanehishigu is the audio documentation of the first time these artists played together. The results are a breathtaking new music that remains respectful to the individual traditions while simultaneously subverting them. Yukihiro Isso: Nohkan (Noh flute), shinobue, dengakubue, gemshorn, and recorder. Roger Turner: percussion. Recorded live at Cafe OTO on September 23, 2016, by Shaun Crook, mixed by John Chantler, and mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Artwork by Paul Abbott. Edition of 500.
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ROKU 012LP
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The Hurrah is the second recorded outing from the universe-shifting free jazz trio of Evan Parker, John Edwards, and Chris Corsano. This trio has been playing together since 2006, sometimes expanding into quartets with the likes of Noah Howard, John Russell, Joe McPhee, John Coxon, and Paul Dunmall. The material on this LP was recorded by James Dunn at Cafe OTO in London on August 22, 2014, during Corsano's four-night residency. All material recorded live; no editing or post-production. As raw and liberating as it was on the evening. Evan Parker: tenor saxophone; John Edwards: double bass; Chris Corsano: drums. All compositions by Evan Parker/John Edwards/Chris Corsano. Artwork by Dennis Tyfus. Mixed by Rupert Clervaux at Grays Inn Road, London. Mastered by Andreas "Lupo" Lubich at Calyx, Berlin.
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ROKU 002CD
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Otoroku presents a new 2CD version of Spontaneous Combustion, here with an extra 78 minutes of music added to the original LP material. The original LP was listed in The Wire magazine's top jazz & improv releases of 2013. Recorded in October 2011, Spontaneous Combustion splits the second set of the first night of Decoy's two day residency with special guest Joe McPhee. Performed by: Alexander Hawkins (Hammond B3); John Edwards (double bass); Steve Noble (drums); Joe McPhee (pocket trumpet, alto sax).
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ROKU 011LP
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III (pronounced /el/) is Daichi Yoshikawa, Paul Abbott and Seymour Wright. This recording includes two bare 20-minute excerpts from separate performances at Café OTO. Daichi Yoshikawa (feedback); Paul Abbott (drums); Seymour Wright (alto saxophone). gjerhan began from subterranea, sweat, haze and dedication emerging out of intimate and intense weekly meetings begun in 2009 -- their first, 2012 public performance, squeezed into a London basement was a sheer, vexed and exhilarating smack of organic, heterodyning ideas, and taut, low-beating lumps. Reemerge/revanish: With the economy of familiar/traditional raw tools feedback, drum-kit, alto saxophone, time, space and emotion, III move from molten musical pasts to grow future pleasures in sound. The ingredients are familiar, but the listening is not: At its heart is a still, undecorated concentration fuelling an extreme testing of limbs, language and order. This has no concern with collapsing difference into a vogueish, flattened mass-froth, but searches -- forensically, ceaselessly -- for something to chew, in the challenge of discretion and integrity or asylum in the body of its instruments. Akilsakilan learning, Doughnut: Finding, twisting and hammering out an expanding musical universe balanced only by its own logic -- III have few obvious comparisons. Their performances are consistent radical negotiations of the emotional, physical and social energies of the environments they sound out. Perfectly reasonable.
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ROKU 010CD
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Cafe OTO's tenth Otoroku release sees a return to the group that kick-started the label -- the veteran German reedsman and free-jazz pioneer Peter Brötzmann with the long-running London bass/drums partnership of John Edwards and Steve Noble. After the release of The Worse The Better, that group went on to play a series of devastating shows in Europe and to emerge as one of Brötzmann's finest working groups. Over the same period, Peter was developing a deep rapport with Jason Adasiewicz, the upstart vibraphone player from Chicago. What seems on paper like an awkward pairing reveals itself onstage and on record as a symbiotic revelation. Adasiewicz's physical attack matching Brötzmann for impact while the extended sustain of the vibes opens up an eerie space for some of Brötzmann's most fertile lyricism. The recording is from the last set of a two-day residency at Cafe OTO that brought these two groups together for an astonishing quartet. Adasiewicz and Noble struck up an immense partnership in rhythm. Edwards wrestled with a broken house bass and failing amplifier and still managed new levels of invention -- stoking the others onwards. Brötzmann was clearly energized, dancing at the side of the stage while exchanging a shattered reed. And for all the usual rhetoric of free jazz bluster and machismo, this is a meeting characterized by the joy of communal creation that makes you want to dance -- even if only in your head. Peter Brötzmann (alto and tenor sax, Bflat clarinet, Taragato); Jason Adasiewicz (vibraphone), John Edwards (double bass); Steve Noble (drums).
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ROKU 010LP
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LP version. Cafe OTO's tenth Otoroku release sees a return to the group that kick-started the label -- the veteran German reedsman and free-jazz pioneer Peter Brötzmann with the long-running London bass/drums partnership of John Edwards and Steve Noble. After the release of The Worse The Better, that group went on to play a series of devastating shows in Europe and to emerge as one of Brötzmann's finest working groups. Over the same period, Peter was developing a deep rapport with Jason Adasiewicz, the upstart vibraphone player from Chicago. What seems on paper like an awkward pairing reveals itself onstage and on record as a symbiotic revelation. Adasiewicz's physical attack matching Brötzmann for impact while the extended sustain of the vibes opens up an eerie space for some of Brötzmann's most fertile lyricism. The recording is from the last set of a two-day residency at Cafe OTO that brought these two groups together for an astonishing quartet. Adasiewicz and Noble struck up an immense partnership in rhythm. Edwards wrestled with a broken house bass and failing amplifier and still managed new levels of invention -- stoking the others onwards. Brötzmann was clearly energized, dancing at the side of the stage while exchanging a shattered reed. And for all the usual rhetoric of free jazz bluster and machismo, this is a meeting characterized by the joy of communal creation that makes you want to dance -- even if only in your head. Peter Brötzmann (alto and tenor sax, B-flat clarinet, Taragato); Jason Adasiewicz (vibraphone), John Edwards (double bass); Steve Noble (drums).
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ROKU 009CD
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The final night of Otomo Yoshihide and Sachiko M's first residency in 2009 saw the pair joined by the long-running trio of Evan Parker, John Edwards and Tony Marsh and special guest John Butcher. Butcher played duos with both Otomo and Sachiko and joined the quintet for a rousing sextet: stunning twin saxophone interplay, the unparalleled openness of the Marsh/Edwards rhythm pairing, Sachiko's deft high-frequency interventions and Otomo's guitar at the center -- moving between abrasive textural invention and suggestive single-note runs of ever-shifting melody.
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ROKU 007LP
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Restocked. Vi Är Alla Guds Slavar is the latest missive from the long-running duo pairing of Mats Gustafsson (The Thing, Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, etc.) and Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth, Chelsea Light Moving, Dream/Aktion Unit, etc.). The recordings presented here are continuous excerpts taken from the heavyweight, high-volume duo sets that topped off each night of their two-day residency at Café OTO in September 2012. Mats mostly plays a selection of amplified table-top electronics as well as some knotty soprano saxophone at the beginning of the second side, while Thurston offers a fine example of the kind of liminal intensity he is capable of generating from his guitar, complete with the low-frequency/octave-doubling dive-bombs that have had us replace the speakers in our Fender Twin twice since he relocated to London in 2013. The title Vi Är Alla Guds Slavar translates as "We Are All Slaves Under God," and is taken from the painting by Edward Jarvis that also serves as the three-color screenprint for the LP sleeve. Printing by Patrick Wells at Heavyrock on archival quality card stock. Mixed by Robert Harder. Mastered by Andreas "Lupo" Lubich @ Calyx. Pressed on high-quality 180 gram vinyl at Record Industry in The Netherlands. First pressing of 1,000 copies.
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