Two of OTOs favourite improvisors lock together in Tokyo, creating jagged noise and percussive clashes - sometimes full steam, sometimes hiding in each others shadows.  "Utterly beguiling recording of two great improvisers at work in the Hara Museum, Tokyo in the winter of 2013. Drumset, percussion, guitar, amplifier - a simple set up that produces complex and extremely dynamic results, with immense swells of enveloping feedback, fragile cymbal scrapes that hover at the edge of audibility, ecstatic free-rock clatter and slyly resonant melodies." ''The musicians feed their material into the space, enough to be picked up by their feedback system, after which they ride their own sounds, penetrating inside the noise to throw its shapes." - Philip Clark, The Guardian  "Yoshihide allows his guitar’s feedback to build up, and as The Last Train unfurls with ghostly patience, he carefully molds the increasingly molten sounds emerging from his six-string until at times it barely sounds like a guitar at all. . . . Turner’s jangles on bells and bowls imbues the music with a gamelan-like ritualism, whilst Yoshihide’s guitar acts as a bass-heavy foundation allowing the drummer to throw out percussive blasts and clashes in controlled abandon." - Joseph Burnett, Dusted  --- Roger Turner / percussion Otomo Yoshihide / guitar --- Recorded by Taku Unami at Hara Museum, Tokyo on 17 February 2013. Mixed and mastered by Rupert Clervaux at Gray’s Inn Road. Produced by Trevor Brent. 

A powerfully lyrical improvisor, Akira Sakata returns to OTO with Italian pianist Giovanni di Domenico and London favourites Roger Turner and John Edwards. Based on a traditional folk song, 'Kaigara-Bushi' is both meditative and theatrical - Sakata-san's cracked vocals complementing Domenico's classical-style piano. The quartet swell and prickle, open the room up with melodic clarity, and then tear it down with 'Tornado' - a screaming sax-led five minute freak out.  Recorded by James Dunn on Wednesday 15th January 2014. Mixed by John Chantler. Mastered by Adam Matschulat. Original photo by Fabio Lugaro.

Born in 1964, Yukihiro Isso is a Japanese Noh flutist (hayashi-kata fue-kata) 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. From his middle school years he began to listen to a variety of different kinds of music and studying new instruments including the recorder, flute 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 1946, Roger Turner grew up amongst the Canterbury musical life of the 1960’s with a strong jazz foundation. Since 1974 work has been concentrated on exploring a more personal percussion language through the processes of improvisation. Solo work, collaborations with experimental rock musics & open - form song, extensive work with dance, film and visual art, involvements in numerous jazz-based ensembles, & 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 which remains respectful to the individual traditions whilst simultaneously subverting them. --- Yukihiro Isso / Nohkan (noh-flute), shinobue, dengakubue, gemshorn and recorder. Roger Turner / percussion --- Takanehishigu was recorded live at Cafe Oto on 23rd Sep 2015 by Shaun Crook Mixed by John Chantler. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Artwork by Paul Abbott. Edition of 500 copies.

Super happy to have dug this out of the archives - the final night of the great French double bass player, improviser and composer, Joëlle Léandre's 2015 residency. Léandre was joined by Scottish improvising vocalist and dancer, Maggie Nicols, and drummer Roger Turner for both nights, and the second of the two saw sparks fly. Solo, Léandre is formidible - melodious, angry, rousing. Her voice breaks through the bass like McPhee's through a trumpet - there's joy, there's humour, and it's 100% intense. Léandre and Nicols have a long history together - 1982's Live at The Bastille with Lyndsey Cooper still stands strong - and their trio with Irène Schweizer as 'Les Diaboliques' is totally unique. Here, both performers are totally at home with with each other and with their sounds - there's depth, unpredictability, intensity and delirious humour. A treasure to share all five pieces, and we hope for another Léandre residency some day soon!  “A true, real artist. Stubborn. Visionary. Uncompromising. Intense. Tender and poetic at moments, raw and angry with the world at other times. She is unconcerned by style, and definitely stays far away from stylistic and formal mannerisms that are needed to placcate the reviewers and the hip audiences. She integrates music as music, and delivers it as music, using elements from tribal rituals over classical finesse to jazz expressionism and avant-garde search for new approaches, yet turning it all into something else, something more authentic, more innovative and - interestingly enough - also more universal.” – The Free Jazz Collective --- Joëlle Léandre / double bass, vocals  Maggie Nichols / vocals Roger Turner / percussion --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Wednesday 18th March, 2015 by Mark Jasper. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn. Photo by the wonderful Dawid Laskowski.