A deeply atmospheric set from multifaceted Irish artist, Vivienne Griffin, accompanied by cellist Oona Lowther and recorded as part of a bill co-curated with Nyahh Records at OTO in April 2026. From the coiling smoke of the mirrored incense burners on the cover (an image adapted from a sculpture created by Griffin themselves) the tone is immediately set for something ritualistic, and the scrape-struck clusters of clarsach harp notes that begin the recording seem to lean into this feeling of a rite being initiated. The lines between ancient ritual and modern realities are instantly blurred however, by the fact that these notes are in fact coming from a purpose-built, self-playing harp, with a 3D-printed metal motorised armature drawing sounds from the instrument. This shifting between ancient and modern - myth and technology - is something something that Griffin builds on to thrilling effect. Shortly after the initial harp notes are established, a heavily distorted kick drum booms into life - seeming to not so much hit the listener's chest as somehow erupt from inside it - and it is clear that we're immersed in a very special sound world indeed. Soon the harp settles into an insistent pulse and Oona Lowther's languorous cello notes rise up to meet it, providing the water for Griffin's seeking, questing vocals to sail across. All the while that jagged kick drum thrums and thuds, never letting anything quite settle, pushing everything ever onwards. This sense of restless momentum never flags across the set's 26 minutes, with Griffin constantly changing and mutating each new sound as if constantly seeking something that always remains tantalisingly just ahead. Cello notes snag and distort, biting tones dart and flicker, until the whole assemblage seems to spiral in on itself. We are left back with the single, unadorned notes of that mechanised harp, but we are not where we started out. As Griffin sings in the stark, haunting middle section, "nothing was ever meant to be this way". We live in an imperfect world, yet by immersing ourselves within it as openly and honestly as is apparent here, we may still emerge with something precious. -- Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed and mastered by Oli Barrett

Available as a 320k MP3 or 16bit FLAC download. Tracklisting: 1. With Claude Cossette NY April 6, 1989 - 24:262. With Elisabetta Vittoni NY April 13, 1989 - 19:43   A major figure in 20th century arts and music (and beyond), Philip Corner studied with Henry Cowell and Olivier Messiaen, and was one of the original Fluxus conspirators, among other highlights of his long and storied career. As part of the body of his 'Metal Meditations' work, Gong/Ear is a decades-long series of improvisations with dancers. Utilizing his favorite Paiste tam-tam, these two recordings from Corner's NYC Leonard Street loft in 1989 are a feedback loop of perceptions between gong and dance: 'the initiating sound (or is it the dancer's posture?) is made physically audible. Responsive movement is turned back into sound. Musical attentiveness sends it back and it continues.'  It’s 1989 in NYC. Public Enemy is winding them up for “Fight the Power” and Philip Corner is elsewhere, with dancers. He bangs a gong and they get it on. Two long, meditative tracks of nothing but gong and the stray om chant, but what a sound this makes – these are ostensibly cassette recordings but they explore the resonant frequencies of Corner’s favored Paiste tam-tam within the kind of loft space that artists in the city can’t get anymore. These documents allow you to access, against the tension of tape hiss, the entire surface of the instrument, the physicality of playing it and the measurement of that response. Here’s where I’d tell you about Corner’s history in the arts but let’s skip that for now and concentrate on the gong show at hand, a beatific sound that seems to go beyond the realm of meditative and into the connections between our atoms. You can feel this. Edition of 305 with a metal gong mounted on the cover with silkscreened calligraphy. Seriously, you need to experience this.” – Doug Mosurock, Still Single “Recorded at his New York City loft on two separate dates in April 1989, Gong/Ear: Dance-ing, 1 & 2 forms part of Corner’s continuing metallic meditations exploring the reverberating qualities of bells and other metal objects. Unfolding over many decades, the Gong/Ear series explores the spontaneous feedback between a gong player and a dancer, interacting with each other as they perform together. “Responsive movement is turned back into sound,” he notes of these sessions. “Musicianly attentiveness sends it back and it continues.” The two performances preserved here, one with Claude Cossette and the other with Elisabeth Vittori, convey with direct simplicity the physical intensity of the sounds produced. Corner’s favourite Paiste tam-tam becomes a sounding board for the entire room: the natural timbre of the instrument is intensified not only by the often vigorous tempi with which he keeps pace with the individual dancers but also by the unpredictable distortions produced as the recording device becomes overloaded by the extreme volume levels produced. These, as Corner specifies in the short sleevenotes to this LP, “are inherent and desired”. The tape machine becomes in effect a third participant in the performance: everything it picks up is accepted as part of the finished piece. There is a wonderful moment near the start of the Vittori session when a telephone rings somewhere in the room, the metallic chimes of its bell contrasting neatly with the resonant swell of the gong; rather than stop the recording and start again, Corner briefly answers the call, barely missing a beat before he continues playing. This acceptance of the complete and unedited performance as it was recorded is indicative of Corner’s rejection of those aesthetic distinctions that separate music from noise, unanticipated occurrences or the movements of the body.” – Ken Hollings, The Wire

Tomeka Reid - celloJason Roebke - bass, cassetteMary Halvorson - guitarTomas Fujiwara - drums

Paperback, 320pp Wolke Verlag, Berlin Now! Writings 1982–2021 brings together nearly four decades of texts, reflections, interviews, and work commentaries by Austrian composer Peter Ablinger. This extensive English edition — edited by Gisela Gronemeyer — offers an illuminating introduction to one of the most singular voices in contemporary music. Through aphoristic essays, poetic fragments, and precise analytical notes, Ablinger explores listening as an artistic act in itself. Noise, language, writing, perception, repetition, and convention form recurring themes throughout the writings, as do engagements with philosophy, visual art, and literature. The volume also includes commentaries on key works from Weiss/Weisslich to Opera/Werke and Stadtoper Graz, revealing how deeply interwoven music, thought, and language are in Ablingers practice.A landmark book for anyone interested in sound, conceptual art, and the expanded field of contemporary composition.

First Official Reissue of Conspiracy. NOT TO BE MISSED!! (due to a slight delay at the pressing plant, this release has been put back to the end of July) Jeanne Lee (1939-2000) was an African-American vocalist, poet, composer, improvisor, activist and educator. In her 40 year career she performed with Archie Shep, Marion Brown, Gunter Hampel, Frank Lowe, William Parker, Andrew Cyrille, Anthony Braxton, Ran Blake, Billy Bang, Cecil Taylor, John Cage, Rashsaan Roland Kirk, Pauline Oliveros, Reggie Workman, and many others. "jazz is a music that combines so many opposites...you have to fined that balance, then you have a guideline between freedom and discipline, between rhythm and melody, between body and spirit, between mind and instinct" (Jeanne Lee) This is the first official reissue of "Conspiracy" since its limited release in 1975, it was her first record under her own name as a solo artist. It is a true lost gem, with a unique and beautiful sound. Musician Elaine Mitchener describes "Conspiracy" as "one of greatest free-form albums of the1970s". "i feel the music like a dance, I think it's an important part of the music, it has to be felt like a dance" (Jeanne Lee) --- Jeanne Lee - vocal Gunter Hampel - flute, piano, vibraphone, alto clarinet, bass clarinet Sam Rivers - soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, flute Steve McCall - drums Alan Praskin - clarinet Perry Robinson - clarinet Jack Gregg - Bass Mark Whitecage - alto clarinet Marty Cook -trombone Recorded in New York, 1974 Originally released in 1975 on "Seeds records" and Jeanne Lee's own "Earth-forms records"

"Long-time collaborators and iconoclastic improvisers, drummer Eddie Prévost and saxophonist John Butcher, met at All Hallows Church, in High Laver, Essex in 2023, using the natural ambience of the space to capture these three improvisations, Prévost playing primarily on a drum kit and both in a more jazz-oriented sax and drum duo, extended by both players' exceptional technique." All the music played one afternoon in All Hallow's Church, High Laver, Essex 2nd June 2023. Recorded by Daniel Blumberg. Edited and mixed by John Butcher. Mastered by Rupert Clervaux.  Design by Myah Chun Grierson