PLANE CRASH 2 is the second document from the legendary, notoriously uncompromising improvisational power trio of Henry Kaiser, Damon Smith, and Weasel Walter… Trio music doesn't get much more real than this. Kaiser has been active in the improvised music community since the 1970s, bringing his dazzling technique and creative chops to bear in a myriad of diverse contexts, including Academy Award winning soundtrack work for longtime collaborator, director Werner Herzog.

Do you remember the film The Thomas Crowne Affair? The original—not the 1999 remake—starred Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, and contained the 1968 Academy Award-winning song "Windmills of Your Mind" by Dusty Springfield. I bring that up because this live performance by Daniel Carter, William Parker, and Matthew Shipp brings to mind the lyrics: "Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel / Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel / As the images unwind, like the circles that you find / In the windmills of your mind."

Matt Mitchell, a 2015 recipient of the prestigious Doris Duke Impact Award, is one of the most in-demand pianists in jazz. As a member of Tim Bernes Snakeoil, the Dave Douglas Quintet, Rudresh Mahanthappas Bird Calls, John Hollenbecks Large Ensemble, and the Darius Jones Quartet, among many others, he has played an integral role on a number of the most critically-acclaimed releases of the last few years. Highly regarded for bringing contemporary classical music influences to his playing, his debut as a leader, Fiction (Pi 2013), a duo with drummer Ches Smith, was described by All About Jazz as “… huge quantities of brain candy, akin to a shot of adrenaline that will keep the willing listener on the edge of his or her seat.”

Following closely on the heels of his ravishing solo album Tomorrow is Too Late, Stockholm-based synthesist and improviser John Chantler switches gears to unleash the stunning second album by his trio with saxophonist Seymour Wright and drummer Steve Noble, Atlantis. Chantler is well-known for his solo electronic work, which frequently explodes richly layered ambient soundscapes into visceral explosions and thrilling physicality, to say nothing of his imaginative experimentation with the organ, heard in radically transformed mode on the recent solo recording.

There have been countless attempts to counteract the inherently boring nature of the CD as an artefact and the approach adopted by Feral shapes up better than some on the strength of this first release, which takes some excellent music by saxophonist Iain Ballamy (in the company of three young Norwegian musicians) and packages it with a set of intriguing print artworks by Dave McKean in an elegant library case. On the other hand, we may now be so accustomed to the blandness of the format that any attempt to escape it seems like a distraction. While debating this, it's important not to forget to play the disc, which is quite remarkable and a far cry from Ballamy's formative years in the sprawling bloke-jazz outfit Loose Tubes. Recorded live at the Molde Jazz Festival in 1998, it's astounding that this music seems to date from the very beginning of Ballamy's association with these musicians, given their obvious level of empathy.

Brandon Seabrook is a guitarist, banjoist, and composer living in New York City where he has established himself as one of the most unique and volatile guitarists of his generation. He has also made a name for himself as a powerful banjo innovator, described by Spin Magazine as “An apocalyptic, supersonic general of the banjo…” His work focuses on the juxtaposition of fragmented soundscapes, angular composition, and a massive dynamic range that can change in a nanosecond. He has released seven albums as a leader covering everything from pulverizing art-metal to chamber jazz. Rolling Stone Magazine noted, ”The fiercely dexterous musician has lunched a number of bands combining serious chops with manic intensity and a left- field compositional vision.”

The Quietus: "This one punts basically all other freeform outings from 2018 way out of the water. It’s the first co-release between American improvised music imprint Astral Spirits and the freshly christened God In The Music label run by Kiwi noise-head Noel Meek - the latter also playing his signature whirr of joyous electronic noise on the tape. Meek plays live in Seattle on the tape alongside Arrington de Dionyso blasting sax and Rodrigo Rico pummeling drums. The trio careen peerlessly forward, spiralling woodwind parps and tribal punches around Noel Meek’s manic whirring. It’s that rarest of performances which above all energises the listener."

Revolutionary Pekinese Opera Ver.1.28 is the 1995 album by Ground-Zero, a Japanese noise rock band featuring Otomo Yoshihide. ReR Megacorp released on CD in the U.S. in 1996.

We are quite excited to present the debut solo release "Kunki Snuk" from Gothenburg, Sweden based saxophonist Signe Dahlgreen…and even more excited to do a co-release of said album with our good friends at INSULA MUSIC in Copenhagen.

Percussionist Michael Ranta turns biblical ideas into steeply enigmatic cues for non-verbal communication in a captivating, atavistic way upon his return to Timos van Lujik and co’s Metaphon label. Composed, performed and recorded in Cologne between 1988-89, ’Die Mauer’ primarily serves its function as soundtrack for a ballet choreographed by Philippe Talard. Applying his keenly-studied technique to a rare knowledge of Asian instruments and modern production techniques, the suite renders 11 parts of subtly wide-ranging percussive tones coupled with rustically dissonant string and wind instrumentation, plus barely perceptible electronics, in a way that evokes deeply meditative, ritualistic states of mind and, in turn, opens vast spaces of inquiry for that mind to wander and become enchanted.

At the beginning of the month, I heard that Simon Fell was seriously ill in hospital with advanced cancer. Today I heard that he passed away this lunchtime. Simon was a portal for me into improvised music. In May 1994, I chanced upon a concert by Peter Brötzmann, Willi Kellers, Alan Wilkinson and Simon Fell at the Grapes Inn, Sheffield and I was blown away. The next time I saw Simon play was a year later at Dr Brown’s pub in Huddersfield, this time with Alan Wilkinson and Paul Hession. I was entranced by his energy and commitment to the moment.

When this album was released in 1994, it shocked casual, and even some hardcore, Metheny fans. Recorded in one day, Zero Tolerance for Silence can best be described as semi-organized noise…

Free guitar for the new age: improv with intention, construction and destruction, all with the grain and air of performance captured and telescoped in a sonic particle collider. Makes sense, and not just because of the chaotic times. With Both, terminal collaborator Bill Nace (Body/Head, Thurston Moore) has found a stimulating, chiaroscuro-stubbled path back to the electric guitar's anarchic promise, drawn through eight colorful pieces that are equal parts sound, noise and music.

The Classic Guide to Strategy is a compilation album by John Zorn featuring his two early solo records The Classic Guide to Strategy Volume One (1983), (tracks 1-2) and the Classic Guide to Strategy Volume Two (1985), (tracks 3-8). The albums were first released on vinyl on Lumina Records in and later re-released on Tzadik Records in 1996 as a single CD.

London Free Improv Scene long-standing members, vocalist Phil Minton and drummer/percussionist Roger Turner's first album together, "Ammo", was released in 1984; the two have continued to record together, and this live recording from 2016 in Hanover, Germany shows the two continuing to create distinctly bizarre and wonderfully personal dialog unlike any other.