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Mikkou (1976) – Her 2nd album is also a masterpiece that explores Yoshiko Sai’s fantasy and exotic feelings. Like a gentle inner trip to what you hear, The Silk Road wanders in the brain of a sleepless night. – P-Vine

Re-mastering by: Ray Staff at Air Mastering, Lyndhurst Hall, London

John Gordon, a trombone master, brings us another gem from that most renowned of 70’s record labels, Strata-East. The trombone is a difficult instrument. In the hands of an artist like John Gordon, however, it can create vivid images and conjure up beautiful music. And when the cohort of other players includes the likes of Charles Tolliver & Stanley Cowell, you know you’re in for an extra treat. – Pure Pleasure Records

A forgotten 1978 free-jazz masterpiece by bass player, composer and improviser David Wertman, alongside his Sun Ensemble.

‘Earthly Delights’ is perhaps best described as loosely composed, or highly improvised, depending on where you stand on such subjective matters. Containing just 4 compositions, ‘Earthly Delights’ explores man’s relationship with nature; at times subtle and delicate, at times wide and sweeping in its gestures. The record’s spiritual message is conveyed by heartfelt, virtuoso performances from all six players, drifting together seamlessly from one sonic wave to the next. - BBE

This work was originally used as music for the choreographed piece by Merce Cunningham entitled Second Hand, with stage decors and costume design by Jasper Johns. It is a work for piano derived from a 1918 dramatic composition by Erik Satie entitled Socrate, itself originally conceived for voice and orchestra. Cage’s original transcription (of one movement) of Satie’s score served as “accompaniment” for Merce Cunningham’s solo dance entitled Idyllic Song, first performed in Richmond, Virginia, on Nov. 20, 1944. In 1968 Cage wished to complete his transcription (of the other two movements), but was forbidden by Satie’s publisher, Salabert. His inventive solution was to compose a new work that perfectly matched the phrase structure of Satie’s music (and thus of Cunningham’s dance, which was already well underway). His technique was simple: he took only the vocal line of Socrate (or occasionally the prominent orchestral melody) and systematically transposed it up or down and into different modes. In the 1st movement, every pitch is transposed separately, but in the 2nd and 3rd, the transpositions occur only at every half-bar. In short, the result is a music that has the same phrasing, rhythms, and even some of the general contours of Satie’s music, but which is otherwise completely distinct. This solved Cage’s copyright problem, and he playfully named his modified new work Cheap Imitation. – John Cage

Beyond the striking photography of the cover artwork, a cursory glance at this LP may appear misleading. One could be forgiven in thinking that what they had discovered was of a more obvious British provenance, but on closer inspection the truth is revealed… London in fact refers to London, Canada, an artistic hotbed that famously spawned the highly influential insurgent noise ensemble, ‘The Nihilist Spam Band’. Less celebrated yet equally remarkable was the improvisational powerhouse ‘The London Experimental Jazz Quartet’, a short lived group led by the forward thinking saxophonist Eric Stach.

Their debut album, Invisible Roots is an overlooked jewel from the Canadian jazz scene. Inspired by the revolutionary artists from the New York free-jazz movement, (namely Ornette Coleman, Archie Sheep and Cecil Taylor), and fuelled by the exciting possibilities afforded by a completely free approach to music, Invisible Roots is an album of potent spontaneous composition, exhibiting both fiery unharnessed blowing alongside lyrical streams of consciousness. In recent years, the album has achieved notoriety in certain record collecting circles mainly due to the track Destroy The Nihilist Picnic, an infectious piece of vamping avant-funk. Despite the commanding presence of this track, it would be misguided to judge the merits of the album on this piece alone, for Invisible Roots is a much deeper and more complex musical statement. This is confirmed by the Iberian-jazz sketch, Spain Is For Old Ladies, the spiritual introspection of Jazz Widows Waltz or the ferocious yet soulful Eric’s Madness, a track which wouldn’t be out of place on an ESP-Disk or BYG Actuel album. Behold, a rare piece of fire music from the Canadian Free-Jazz underground. – The Roundtable

Restored artwork + Obi Strip

First ever vinyl reissue of this French free jazz nugget from Sahib Shihab & Jef Gilson Unit

Remastered from the master tapes.

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Paris, February 1972. A few months after having released Le Massacre du Printemps, Jef Gilson was back behind his keyboards for a completely different experience. Heading up his Unit, he was joined by Sahib Shihab, expartner to Gillespie, Monk and Coltrane, for a brief stroll in the desert. For three-quarters of an hour, the caravan passes by, evoking, one after the other, Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane, Pierre Henry and Karlheinz Stockhausen… Oh yes, and one other thing, we forgot to mention that Shihab’s saxophone is… amplified.

La marche dans le désert, (The Walk in the Desert) is first and foremost the meeting of two iconoclastic musicians: Jef Gilson, pianist who tried his hand in all forms of jazz (bebop, choral, modal, free, fusion…) collaborating with emblematic American musicians (Walter Davis Jr., Woody Shaw, Nathan Davis…) or French musicians who were on their way to becoming so (Jean-Luc Ponty, Bernard Lubat, Michel Portal, Henri Texier…), and Sahib Shihab… Shihab is one of the many black American jazzmen who found refuge in Europe.

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After having played in the bands of Fletcher Henderson and Roy Eldridge, the saxophonist worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey and Tadd Dameron. He came to the old continent with the Quincy Jones orchestra, spent a few years in Copenhagen, returned to Los Angeles, then came back to Europe. When he met Jef Gilson, in February 1972, the saxophonist was happily touring with the Clarke-Boland Big Band.

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La marche dans le désert, is therefore the opportunity for this supporting player to show what he was capable of. And it was some opportunity: with Gilson and his Unit (Pierre Moret on keyboards and Jean-Claude Pourtier on drums, with whom the pianist had just recorded Le massacre du printemps, but also with Jef Catoire on double bass, and Bruno Di Gioia and Maurice Bouhana on flute and percussion respectively), Shihab got maximum exposure.

To mark the occasion, he put aside his baritone saxophone to play a soprano… varitone. The amplified instrument, while losing nothing of its natural sound, was capable of generating the same presence as Gilson’s electronic keyboards. And it would change the face of modal jazz: in a forest of percussion, Shihab and Gilson go on a sensual walkabout that will remain with listeners for long after. Between the two takes of Mirage, Shihab, this time on baritone again, takes up the mantle once more of a style of jazz he was unable to strictly define: “For me there is only one type of music: good”. Let’s make one thing clear from the outset: La marche dans le désert, is definitely good.

On his solo percussion LP, Jamire Williams shows himself to be an inspired crafter of sound, capable of building entire worlds from just his drum hits.

On ///// Effectual, Williams shows himself to be both an inspired composer and tasteful crafter of sound. He can build whole worlds worth spending time in with nothing but drum hits. But, as the fuller tracks suggest, he might  make something even deeper and richer if he allowed even one or two more primary colors into the frame. *///// Effectual *provides a powerful blueprint to build on. - Pitchfork

The tenth edition of our Spiritual Jazz series takes a closer look at the music Prestige was recording at the start of the 1960s. This was the period when the modal jazz sound pioneered by Miles and Coltrane was starting to percolate through the jazz underground. In its heyday, Prestige was the only jazz label that could hold a candle to Blue Note. Prestige was always quick off the mark to record new artists, and in the years after Kind of Blue the label was quick to release some of the most innovative early explorers of the new style.

Founded as New Jazz in 1949 by 20-year old jazz fan and entrepreneur Bob Weinstock, Prestige was the only other imprint besides Blue Note to capture the iconic jazz sounds of the 1950s, and like its rival it grew to be an icon itself. If Blue Note documented the sound of hard bop in its most carefully crafted and beautifully presented form, the low-key, jam-session approach that Weinstock preferred meant that the music captured by Prestige has a tough, unfiltered energy that was a lot closer to way it was being played live, night after night, by New York's most prominent jazz musicians.– Jazzman Records | Bandcamp

Originally released in 1981 as a limited vinyl pressing of 300 copies on Agi Yuzuru’s fabled experimental label Vanity Records (R.N.A. Organism, Dada, Sympathy Nervous, Tolerance…), Lady Maid is a testament to the creativity of the early 80s’ Japanese electronic and experimental scene, encapsulating a prolific era when audio gear became affordable for musicians to explore sounds in the comfort of their home, free from studio time pressure and major label rules.

Entirely imagined and brought to life by an inspired Yukio Fujimoto, the 6-track opus was conceived with a Korg MS-20, a Korg SQ-10, a Boss Dr. Rhythm DR-55, and…a Texas Instruments Speak & Spell! It’s elegantly minimalist, honest and witty, very playful, cleverly pop, and downright fascinating. The a-side captures the fun side of avant-garde electronica, lo-fi wave, proto-glitch, and IDM, a joyful ride beautifully interrupted by the cinematic mood switch of the b-side - a 20 minute ambient piece flirting with sci-fi, melancholy, and hints of metallic darkness. Unclassifiable and marvelous! – Bandcamp

More from the label We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records 

 Antwerp-based nonconformist Dennis Tyfus debuts on PAN under his Vom Grill moniker with the ‘Knerpen! (bevel)’ LP. Tyfus’ dealings in unstable media—spanning paintings and illustrations, films, radio transmissions and more—reflect the freeform, sometimes parodic nature of his sonic output, which has been archived on his own Ultra Eczema imprint alongside many outsider, weirdo and noise underground artists.

‘Knerpen! (bevel)’ is a jarring collage of skewed electronics, tape loops and treated vocals. Opening sequence ‘I’ writhes and seizes with electricity. Skull-resonant clangs are sucked and “scrunched” back into themselves, before throbs of condensed static give way to the sound of someone rummaging around inside the bodies of acoustic instruments. On b-side ‘II,’ Tyfus multitracks the vocalizations of opera singer Emilie Fleamountains into an empyrean choir, before winding back the tape into a foaming-at-the-mouth mechanical meltdown.

The album is mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, pressed on 140g LP. It features photography by Dennis Tyfus and layout by Bill Kouligas.– PAN

Carioca is the term used to describe those who originate from Rio de Janeiro. But, in fact, there’s only one Carioca in the music scene in Brazil: Ronaldo Leite de Freitas, who took up this nickname in São Paulo after relocating from his native Rio de Janeiro to study music at University.

Recorded in 1980, Mistérios da Amazônia is also, at least to our knowledge, one of the first crowd-funding initiatives in the Brazilian music scene. Carioca, lacking the resources to pay for the studio and manufacturing fees, sold the album to fans, friends and independent record stores before having recorded it.

Carioca’s first work is a fascinating one of a kind album, certainly difficult to classify. Often compared to the path set by musicians such as Egberto Gismonti or Naná Vasconcelos, who were always seeking new musical expressions whilst retaining a Brazilian character. - Altercat Records

"The music of Cuban-born, Brooklyn-based pianist David Virelles conjures a hallucinatory world in which ancient Afro-Cuban rhythms and ritual reverberate in the here and now. His latest ECM offering is Antenna, music attuned to a timeless rhythmic-cultural current even as it pulses with a vibrantly urban, modernist energy. Antenna – a six-track, 22-minute EP to be released exclusively on vinyl and digitally – sees Virelles channel Afro-Cuban percussion into an electro-acoustic, almost psychedelic swirl, one that melds jazz improvisation and organic grooves with digital refraction, shadowy synthesizers, otherworldly field recordings and Cuban street poetry. Antenna is an undulating, throbbing, dizzying dream of sound. Mbòkó, the pianist’s ECM leader debut from 2014, featured in Best Of The Year lists in The New York Times, NPR, iTunes and The Village Voice, among others. The Guardian described Mbòkó as “a jazz-infused world-music project beyond categories,” adding: “Virelles looks set to make big differences in contemporary music for years to come.” - ECM Records

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“Second album, released in 1979, by French keyboard wizard Benoit Widemann (ex-Magma). “Tsunami” is an incredible mix of electronics and jazz-fusion with prog / avant-garde /minimal elements. Treated Minimoog, Oberheim synths, Rhodes, early computer sequencing plus bass, drums, guitar, sax. Featuring Jean-Pierre Fouquey (es-Magma), Jean-Pierre Grasset (Verto) and Jean-Paul Ceccarelli among others.

Remastered sound, insert with linear notes and photos” – Sommor Records

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“Recorded in ’73 and rejected by tin-eared major label execs in ’75, Crystal Spears (or “Crystal Clear” as it appears on the tape box) subsumes a cathartic brawl between Minimoog and Yamaha combo organ, with percussionists providing tonal textures, and plaintive oboe colliding with roaring electronic keyboards over waves of rollicking marimba, devilishly chattering below the fray. Crystal Spears is Ra’s once lost aural cinematheque! Includes a quad-ra-color Sun Ra poster!

Crystal Spears, intended for release in 1975 by ABC/Impulse! and assigned catalog # AS-9297, was ultimately rejected by the label. Ra and business manager Alton Abraham retained the rights, rechristened the album Crystal Clear and assigned Saturn Records catalog # 562—but they never got around to issuing it. The first three tracks on this album were mastered from that tape, a 1/4-inch four-track (15 ips) brand favored by home recording enthusiasts—and generally disfavored by pro engineers. The sessions took place at Variety Recording Studio in New York on February 3, 1973, a month before the Ark returned on March 8 to record Cymbals, as well as tracks issued decades later under the title Sign Of The Myth (and perhaps even Pathways To Unknown Worlds).” – Sundazed

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