Esoteric Antenna is delighted to announce the release of the wonderful new studio album by Djabe & Steve Hackett; “BACK TO SARDINIA”. In 2016 the celebrated Hungarian group DJABE and acclaimed solo musician and former Genesis guitarist STEVE HACKETT spent a few days on the magnificent island of Sardinia. Near the Nostra Signore di Tergu cathedral they built a temporary recording studio in the priest’s house. The recordings went well, the artists were deeply inspired by the surroundings. The 3-day long improvised session was put into shape by Tamás Barabás, who later in Budapest produced a whole album from the multitrack tapes to create the album Life Is A Journey – The Sardinia Tapes.

Pollution is the 1972 album by Italian man Franco Battiato, who simply went by Battiato for this release. This is the 1998 pressing released by Ricordi via BMG.

Fetus is the 1972 album by Italian man Franco Battiato, who simply went by Battiato for this release. This is the 1998 pressing released by Ricordi via BMG.

A professional musician from the age of 12, Simon Phillips' drumming sound and style is instantly recognizable. He's toured and recorded with just about every major rock and pop act imaginable; from Mick Jagger, The Who and Toto to Judas Priest, Mike Oldfield, and Joe Satriani. Protocol 3 is real-deal jazz rock. No avant-garde trappings, smooth jazz noodling or proggy pretensions (well, maybe a little bit of the latter) here.

Protocol II arrives fourteen years after drummer Simon Phillips' last leader date—the hard bop and post-bop based Vantage Point (Jazzline Records, 2000). And it comes approximately a quarter century after the original Protocol (Music for Nations, 1988)—a true solo date that had Phillips covering all the instruments, filling in the space around his calling-card drumming.

Otolithen is a duo formed in 1993 by Päd Conca of Switzerland and Dirk Bruinsma of The Netherlands. Conca plays electric bass, a homemade string instrument, effects and foot-activated percussion, while Bruinsma sings and plays electric guitars, soprano saxophone and foot-triggered percussion. Conca and Bruinsma use prepared instruments and a wide range of effects. Their compositions exhibit rhythmic complexity, and range from delicate melodies to noisy sonic assaults. Otolithen released an album in Germany on their amf label in 1995. Their second release, S.O.D., was released by Cuneiform in 1997.

Post-metal power force Sumac based around Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom) follow up their collaboration with Keiji Haino on Thrill Jockey, American Dollar Bill - Keep Facing Sideways, You are too Hideous to Look at Face on (2018), with another monolith - heavy and experimental at the same time. Personnel: Keiji Haino - guitar, voice, flute, taepyeongso; Aaron Turner - guitar; Nick Yacyshyn - drums; Brian Cook - bass.

Nous sommes au milieu du salon. Le public est au même niveau que le groupe. Certaines personnes se sont assis sur un coussin. La scène est délimitée par un tapis et Eloïse Decazes se tient sur le bout de ses pieds. Ses yeux se perdent dans l’air, elle a un sourire de fou et ses mains effectuent un mouvement gracieux. Sing Sing nous donne l’impression d’être monté sur un ressort. Ses mains viennent heurter sa guitare avec véhémence, elles tiennent ce rythme syncopé, tendu et incendiaire. Mocke est assis sur le côté de la salle de concert improvisée. Il tient un bottleneck. Il le fait glisser sur le manche de sa Fender Jazzmaster, tissant ainsi un ensemble de lignes mélodiques qui se perdent avec le temps dans les derniers rhizomes de nos cerveaux. Arlt arrête sa musique comme ça et nous ne pouvions qu’être là.

Without any obvious keystone event, Biota – who started recording in the late 1970’s as the Mnemonist Orchestra – have quietly become a musical fixture, honoured for their uniquely, abstract, layered, polystylistic approach to musical construction - deaf to fashion or possible sales. And it seems, paradoxically, to have been just this art-orientated commercial indifference that has slowly won them loyal followers and surprisingly respectable sales. Now, for a wider audience - and at a congenial price - this box collects five representative releases that span their discography and track the radical evolution of their crystalline aesthetic – with added documentation, a band history, insights into their work process, and a full-length bonus CD embroidered from their archive of rare and unreleased material. Contents: Funnel to a Thread, Half a True Day, Invisible Map, Object Holder and Gyromancy (recorded as the Mnemonist Orchestra), and the box-only bonus Counterbalance.

After 4 years of work on their 11th release for ReR, this extraordinary, reclusive, and highly individual audio-visual collective continues to evolve through the painstaking accumulation and disposition of a seemingly incompatible range of both exotic and familiar musical languages, instruments, techniques and studio manipulations into one of the few genuinely original bands at work today. It took a long time to refine their unique process of composition to this level of ambiguity and depth and newcomers will wonder how they strayed so far from orthodoxy and yet managed to retain a lucidity and transparency that is quite rare in contemporary music. The bullet points are that Biota is a unique project, defying genre with, like all such cult artists, a small but extremely dedicated public that, over the last 15 years has grown continuously as new listeners discover them. Founded in Colorado in the late 1970s, Biota's first recordings were released under the name of the Mnemonist Orchestra who, between 1980 and 1984, released five albums on its own label, before linking up with ReR.

Rain Tree Crow is the result of a collaboration between former Japan members David Sylvian and Mick Karn. Sylvian and Karn teamed with keyboardist Richard Barbieri and Steve Jansen, adding guitarists Phil Palmer and Bill Nelson for their self-titled debut. Like a mellower, new age-oriented version of Japan, Rain Tree Crow explores stark soundscapes that sound alternately beautiful and desolate. Although it is a bit too challenging to provide a good introduction to Sylvian and Karn's music, the album remains fascinating for their fans.

It's not the first time guitarist Alex Machacek has composed around drum improvisation—he did that with three tracks on [sic], his 2006 breakout record and first for Abstract Logix—but he's taken the concept even farther on 24 Tales. It's also not the only release to use, as its basis, a 51-minute drum improvisation by Marco Minneman—Machacek's band mate in keyboardist/violinist Eddie Jobson's Ukz, which debuted in 2009 with the Radiation (Globe Music) EP. Guitarist Mike Keneally, touch guitarist Trey Gunn, and Mars Hollow bassist/guitarist Kerry Chicoine were all given Minneman's metrically and polyrhythmically challenging solo as part of the drummer's Normalizer 2 project as well, but 24 Tales sets the bar incredibly high for everyone else; a true fusion masterpiece that actually surpasses [sic]'s remarkably deep composition and stunning performance.

In March 2019 Instant Classic will release a second full length album from Alameda 5. A follow up to 2015's acclaimed double lp "Duch tornada" is entitled "Eurodrome" and consists of 10 new tracks ranging from modern krautrock to electronic fusion.

DAVID SYLVIAN Weatherbox (Rare 1989 UK deluxe 5-CD box set spanning David's career and his many collaborations. Includes the releases: Brilliant Trees, Alchemy, Gone To Earth, Gone To Earth - Instrumental [Exclusive to this box set] and Secrets Of The Beehive. Also includes a 60 page booklet which documents each release and all the musicians involved plus fold-out poster. The artwork and design is by Russell Mills and Dave Coppenhall with sliding lid on the top of the box. The accompanyment by the likes of Bill Nelson, Sakamoto, Jansen/Barbierri/Karn, Russell Mills, Robert Fripp, Michael Brooks et al bears testimony to just how many TALENTED ARTISTS are influenced and eager to work w/ Mr. Sylvian.

Rare and previously unreleased mixes taken from The Hot Rats Sessions. A 50th anniversary celebration of the 1969 album hot Rats.