The untold early history of Amsterdam's seminal collective. Founded in 1967 by three of European free music's leading lights – pianist Misha Mengelberg, drummer Han Bennink, and saxophonist and clarinetist Willem Breuker – the Instant Composers Pool (ICP) was simply one of the most important vehicles for experimentation and improvisation in the history of creative music. Culling ideas and materials from jazz, modern and contemporary classical music, Fluxus, traditional music from the Balkans and elsewhere, as well as avant-garde theater, ICP was ahead of the pack in numerous ways, presenting a kind of irony-tinged, amalgamated version of free and structured improvisation – or instant composition – that would be a hallmark of subsequent movements in New York's downtown scene and elsewhere in Europe in decades to follow. Based on twenty years of deep research, Incipient ICP (1966-71) picks up the story just before the group's foundation, with previously unreleased recordings of groups led by Mengelberg in 1966, among them a performance of their notorious piece "Viet Cong," with Breuker joining the Mengelberg Quartet. The only tracks in this 2-disc set that have been commercially released – and only on the enormous 53-disc box set – come from studio sessions in 1967, featuring a mid-sized band with German trumpeter Manfred Schoof as special guest. These beautifully recorded tracks suggest the dichotomy between projects led by Mengelberg (two pieces) and those led by Breuker (four pieces), a schism that would grow until Breuker left the band in the mid 1970s to found his own group, the Willem Breuker Kollektief. Three more tracks led by Mengelberg in 1969 feature American keyboardist and composer Frederic Rzewski, as well as an incredible spotlight on Frans Brüggen's unusual amplified double-bass recorder. The final suite comes from a 1971 date led by Breuker, sans Mengelberg and Bennink. Moving more toward his Kolletief concept, Breuker leads a drumless quintet through his own cabaret-inflected pieces – featuring Lodewijk de Boer's hardcore electric viola and brother Peter Bennink's alto and soprano saxophone – as well as Albert Ayler's "Angels." The deluxe package sports contemporaneous photos of the players by Pieter Boersma. CD 1 1. Session No. 1 (Mengelberg/10:31) Eddie Engels, trumpet; Alfred Smit, trombone; Theo Loevendie, soprano saxophone; Piet Noordijk, alto saxophone; Willem Brekuer, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet; Misha Mengelberg, piano; Rob Langereis, bass; Han Bennink, drums. Recorded 1966, pre-ICP. 2. Viet Cong (Mengelberg/11:32) Willem Breuker, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute; Piet Noordijk, alto saxophone; Misha Mengelberg, piano; Victor Kaihatu, bass; Han Bennink, drums, percussion, swanee whistle. Recorded December 13, 1966, at Misha Mengelberg’s Wessel Ilcken Prize ceremony. 3. Die Berge Schützen die Heimat (Mengelberg/9:06) 4. Jump Italiano (Mengelberg/5:43) Instant Composers Pool; Manfred Schoof, cornet and flugelhorn; Gilius van Bergeijk, oboe; Theo Loevendie, soprano saxophone; Willem Breuker, bass clarinet, clarinet; Maarten van Regteren Altena, bass; Misha Mengelberg, piano; Han Bennink, drums. Recorded June 19, 1967. 5. Adebar der Geheimnisvolle (Breuker/8:18) 6. Piano Distance (Breuker/5:27) 7. Before Og 15 Kir (Breuker/9:56) 8. September Song (Loevendie/13:12) Instant Composers Pool; Manfred Schoof, trumpet; Willem Breuker, bass clarinet; Lodewijk de Boer, viola; Hasso van der Westen, viola; Henry Ronde, steel drum; Maarten van Regteren Altena, bass; Arjen Gorter, bass, accordion; Misha Mengelberg, piano, toy instruments; Han Bennink, drums. Recorded July 19 and August 25, 1967. CD 2 1. HRRG II (Mengelberg/3:38) 2. STCH Shuffle (Mengelberg/3:20) 3. ICP 4 14 Write Your Own Part (Mengelberg/4:52) Instant Composers Pool; Misha Mengelberg, piano; Frederic Rzewski, electronics, mini tape recorder into megaphone, piano, organ; Willem Breuker, bass clarinet; Peter Bennink, alto & tenor saxophone; Frans Brüggen, amplified double-bass recorder; Willem van Manen, trombone; Bert Koppelaar, trombone; Erik van Lier, bass trombone; Arjen Gorter, bass; Han Bennink, drums, tap dance. Recorded April 14, 1969. 4. Four Tempi Match (Brekuer/4:57) 5. Siep (Sybren Polet) (Brekuer/13:52) 6. New Alto (Breuker/7:07) 7. Angels (Albert Ayler/4:52) 8. Langlauf Song (Breuker/3:06) 9. Trammermusik (Breuker/15:10) Instant Composers Pool; Willem van Manen, trombone; Peter Bennink, alto and soprano saxophone; Willem Breuker, soprano, alto, and tenor saxophone, clarinet; Lodewijk de Boer, electric viola; Maarten van Regteren Altena, bass. Recorded July 4, 1971, at Theater Hot, Den Haag, Netherlands. Photos by Pieter Boersma. Design by David Khan-Giordano. Under license from the Instant Composers Pool and Olga Zuiderhoek. Tracks 3-8 on CD 1 first issued as ICP 000 in the 54-disc box set Instant Composers Pool (ICP 1275-1, 2012); tracks 1-3 on CD 2 first issued on The Dutch Jazz Scene (promotional 7-LP box, Radio Nederland, 1969). Remaining tracks previously unissued. Special thanks to Susanna von Canon. Prepared for release by Alex Inglizian, Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago. Design by David Khan-Giordano. Under license from the Instant Composers Pool and Olga Zuiderhoek. Produced by John Corbett.

Recorded at the height of their powers as the leading free jazz trio in Europe, 1971 includes some of the hottest and heaviest music ever made by Brötzmann, starting with an inflammatory, incandescent 26-minute live track recorded at the New Jazz Meeting auf Burg Altena. Only available on a nearly-impossible-to-find LP sampler issued at the time by the festival, this marks "Just for Altena"'s first appearance on CD. Two more tracks come from pristine studio recordings made shortly before the festival, and they show an entirely different side of the trio, with delicate and harmonically intricate work by the Belgian pianist van Hove and typically wide ranging and mondo offerings from Bennink, at the time when the Dutch percussionist was using a huge, ragtag setup with metallic flotsam and jetsam augmenting his traditional kit. Peter Brötzmann, tenor saxophone Fred van Hove, piano Han Bennink, drums, percussion

Second LP in the catalog of German guitarist and instrument inventor Hans Reichel (1949-2011), a program of microtonal string investigations that is still beguiling and fresh four decades later. Originally released by FMP in 1976, with a hilarious cover by Reichel himself. Never before available on CD, remastered from original tapes, packaged with gatefold and tip-on cover reprinting the original design. Like Reichel's debut, a super-rare slice of musical otherness.

Subtitled “some more guitar solos,” Bonobo Beach was German guitarist and instrument inventor Hans Reichel’s fourth and final record of solo guitar works. After this record, Reichel would turn much of his attention to the bowed wooden-tongued instrument he created called the daxophone. Reichel recorded the six tracks at his home in Wuppertal in April, 1981, and in the process made what might be his masterpiece. These are not just some more guitar solos. Concentrating largely on acoustic guitar with no frets as well as his electric pick-behind-the-bridge guitar, he transforms tones into crystalline formations – patience with resonances, attention to silence, formation of symmetries around a common sonic point, jetting notes that arc and spread and then hover. One might look for other references to describe what Reichel is up to – the magic of Terje Rypdal, the aura of early William Ackerman, the eccentric multiple pickups of Fred Frith – but really this is unique in guitar repertoire.Reichel built his instruments as tools for improvised exploration, and then he dove deep into them, never so far as on tracks like “Could Be Nice” or the quivering “Southern Monologue,” or the two brilliant versions of the title track, “Bonobo Beach.” On “Two small pieces announced by a cigar-box,” the titular box is bowed in a vocal manner that portends Reichel’s development of the daxophone. This CD reissue, licensed directly from FMP, restores Reichel’s original artwork and design for the LP, as well as an amusing insert tracking the development of his guitars from 1972-1981. A beautiful, essential document from one of the great outsider guitarists of all time. Limited edition of 500 copies. Southern Monoluge (6:00 minutes) Bonobo Beach II (4:30 minutes) Could Be Nice (9:20 minutes) Two Small Pieces Announced by Cigar-box a) (3:00 minutes) b) (3:45 minutes) Bonobo Beach I (7:45 minutes) Could Be Nice Too (5:30 minutes)Fretless Spanish guitar on piece 1; 6-string guitar with extra frets on the covering board on piece 4; 12-string guitar with extra frets on the covering board on pieces 2 and 5; electric pick-behind-the-bridge-guitar on pieces 3 and 6; everything taped as played. Recorded April 1981 in Wupperlal.Compositions, recording, pictures and design by Hans Reichel.CvsDCD094

Originally released on FMP in 1973, this is the debut LP by legendary German guitar improvisor and instrument inventor Hans Reichel (1949-2011), a resonant and hilarious document of the nascent genius, recording his peculiar and wondrous music alone in a studio. Acoustic and unfiltered electric guitars turned back into the supremely malleable instruments they were before they'd been firmly encoded as tools for rock or pop or jazz. Reichel is like an improvising Harry Partch, investigating the genesis of lute music. Never before available on CD, remastered from original tapes, packaged lovingly with a gatefold and tip-on cover, reprinting the original design, which was by Reichel. 1. Wenn das Rohr Dommeit (4:04) 2. Lupi (0:27) 3. Wichlinghauser Blues (6:40) 4. Krampfhandlungen 1st Version (5:45) 5. Allegro (3:20) 6. Krampfhandlungen 2nd Version (7:08) 7. Abendlied (4:17) 8. Alfons “Al” Piepenbrink & his Lonely Wah-Wah Pedal (1:38) 9. Shaved Guitar (3:26) 10. Schlafflied (3:41) Hans Reichel, guitar All compositions by Hans Reichel. Remark: All tunes have been taped as played (indeed). A homemade 11-string guitar (3 pickups) has been used for all tunes except the first one. LP originally released on FMP (FMP 0150, 1973). Recorded by Joachim Ehrig between April and June 1973, at home, at Youth-Center Hagen-Haspe, and at EROC-Studios in Hagen. LP produced by Jost Gebers. LP design by Hans Reichel. Photographs by Ulf Wolf and Dagmar Gebers. CD mastering by Olaf Rupp. CD design by David Giordano. Publication editor, Corbett vs. Dempsey, Emily Letourneau. CD produced by John Corbett.

The quiet beauty of the improvised duets of legendary guitarist and composer Jim O’Rourke and saxophone player extraordinaire Mats Gustafsson finally pressed on extenisve double vinyl.  The 1999 recordings for Incus Records were taken in all their glory and remastered by O‘Rourke – now the full versions of the tracks plus some unreleased songs. --- Mats Gustafsson – tenor saxophone, fluteophone, flute, junkJim O´Rourke – guitar, accordeon, junkDedicated to Derek Bailey. Recording: 1999 by Jeremy Lemos at ACME Studios, Chicago Production: Will & Siegmund Mix: 1999 by Jeremy Lemos at ACME Studios, Chicago Re-Mastering: 2021 by Jim O'Rourke at Steamroom Artwork: Hanns Schimansky

Written and recorded between 1972 and 1982 in Western Oregon, Back to the Woodlands is a previously unreleased, and nearly lost, album made by Ernest Hood during the same era as his near mythical album Neighborhoods. A visionary combination of field recordings, zithers, and synthesizers, Back to the Woodlands offers an unprecedented depth of access to this singular artistic mind. Working closely with his estate to maintain his original vision, Freedom to Spend has restored and remastered this never before released, lost masterpiece by Ernest Hood from the original tapes. Ernest Hood’s Back to the Woodlands will be issued on vinyl, as well as on CD in combination with its contemporary Where the Woods Begin, with new liner notes by Michael Klausman.

A fantastic new release by Rory Salter aka Malvern Brume on Index Clean The two main ideas behind the music are to make use of domestic and work situations. Most of it was recorded in a new flat I moved into last year. The place had a really interesting acoustic and after so many years of making music in whatever flat I was living in I wanted to do something where you could really hear the place it was recorded/the surrounding area. So a lot of the recordings are done in different locations in the flat, and often re-played back into the flat and recorded using different speakers and microphones. A lot of material was recorded whilst performing usual domestic activities and would spend quite a lot of time running between rooms doing other tasks at the same time as recording. The name of the 'On the Floor, by the Door' track is because that's where I recorded a fair bit of it, by the front door. It's in a similar way that I used and included my job in the pieces. I work as a sound technician at a university in the day and as a sound engineer in the evenings a couple times a week. I've been thinking (and talking a lot of shit) about work and art making recently and I’m really into stuff where the persons found some way to include their day job in their art in a way that sort of re-purposes the skills, materials, time etc of work. So anyway I did a lot of this, really thinking about skills I've picked up and making the effort to borrow some really otherwise unattainable equipment. I thought a lot about space and acoustic-ness during the process so a lot of it again is about me wanting sound to exist within a space; reamping sounds into spaces, or recording synthesised sounds through different speakers positioned in ways to filter and alter the sound. A lot of these practices are things I've developed and talked about a lot at work. Friends also feature quite a bit in relatively candid ways and crop up in recordings here and there. I guess there's a desire to get to a point of a 'life' music, where it feels a bit everyday and blurs the line a bit, that's when things are most interesting to me.- Rory Salter 

2023 restock. Subtitled: Live at the Kulturforum, Bonn, Germany, November 24, 1980. Another in the Wooden Weavil series, this time an unreleased live Robbie Basho recording from Germany in 1980. Robbie Basho was one of the great pioneers of the acoustic steel string guitar in the U.S., along with Leo Kottke and John Fahey in the 1960s. This program appears to have been recorded in one go. Robbie scatters his Americana numbers throughout, beginning with "Redwood Ramble," and ending with "California Raga." This date finds Robbie in fine fettle, his playing sharpened by the intensity of touring, his mood seems ebullient, at times (as on "Fandango") he comes off like John Lee Hooker's sun-kissed cousin, stomping furiously along to his playing. There is sweetness to his material, yes, but this is not, as Jack Rose put it, "music for wineries." There is the galloping muscularity of Basho's playing, coupled with the sheer hugeness of his sound; the fearless employment of dissonance as part of his musical make-up; a love for the unexpected chord change. Robbie was a voracious and uncompromising player. Basho's singing was as integral to who he was as his guitar playing, and when he opened his mouth, he filled the room with sound. Say what you like about his lyrics, no one can accuse Basho of dilettantism, of dabbling, or of trying something on merely for effect. Whatever bag he was in, he was in all the way. Liner notes from Glenn Jones and Stephen Basho-Junghans, and beautifully remastered by Glenn Jones.

French guitar player Boni teamed up with legendary US jazz-musician McPhee in the early 80s for some intense cooperations and albums (as a duo and as a trio with Andre Jaume). The complete concert inspired by the words of Eric Dolphy:  "When you hear music, After it's over, It's gone, In the air, You can never capture it again." --- Joe McPhee / soprano saxophone, electronics and voice Raymond Boni / Electric guitar and electronics --- Recorded at Hulsey Recital Hall on the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) campus. April 20,1985

"The FIMAV performance is an extraordinary recording, an aural opportunity to hear the Ensemble exploring at length, stretching the contemporaneous studio documentation, but even with the Ensemble’s brilliant and transformative history, Sainkho Namtchylak’s spontaneous addition to Fixing is unique. Namtchylak’s intensity transcends the metaphoric. This performance is not folkloric. It is folklore. It is not shamanic. It is shamanism. The ElectroAcoustic Ensemble is one of the most significant events in the humanization of electronic music, in making it mobile and spontaneously responsive. Fluctuating, by the Ensemble itself, is more than a valuable document, it’s a major revelatory work." - Stuart Broomer

Whitstable Solo is the first Evan Parker solo soprano saxophone recording since Lines Burnt in Light inaugurated his Psi label back in late 2001. Since then, the label has steadily rereleased Parker's earlier solo soprano albums, with the notable exception of Monoceros (Incus, 1978; Chronoscope, 1999). Culled largely from a July, 2008 performance at the Whitstable Biennale event with artist Polly Read and filmmaker Neil Henderson—seven tracks taken from the concert and one from before the audience arrived—Whitstable Solo was recorded in St. Peter's church by engineer Adam Skeating. Tellingly, since this recording, St. Peter's has become Parker's studio of choice because of its great acoustics. Given the scope of Parker's solo soprano recordings, trying to set a new one in context is not a fruitful venture. Increasingly, as with many other greats, the only sensible advice to someone enquiring where to begin listening to Parker is to start anywhere but hear the lot—advice particularly true of his solo recordings. Taken as a body of work, each part makes sense alone, while contributing to greater appreciation of the whole. So it is with Whitstable Solo; it makes no sense to ask where it stands in comparison to Parker's past recordings. It stands alone but amplifies the rest, containing elements that will be recognizable to anyone familiar with that past. These include Parker's subtle interactions with the acoustics and resonances of the recording space, and his use of circular breathing to build an irresistible, kaleidoscopic barrage of sound that can induce a trance-like state. Such elements are often the ones that are latched onto after initial exposure to Parker's soprano, however, there is far more here than those most obvious aspects. Not least is the melodic content of several of the pieces; without playing any obvious theme, Parker spins out melodic lines—repeating and exploring those that appeal—creating an overall effect similar to the carefree sound and feel of birdsong. Simply beautiful. - All About Jazz 

This music was inspired by Lynn Margulis’ serial endosymbiosis theory (SET), and is dedicated to her and her amazing insights into the mechanisms of biological evolution.In inviting Paul Lytton, Barry Guy, Walter Prati, Marco Vecchi, Lawrence Casserley and FURT, I was trading on the pre-existing musical structures that these musicians brought with them: the solo works of Guy, Lytton , Casserley and myself; the duos with Lytton, Guy, Prati and Casserley, the trio with Guy and Lytton, the trio with Guy and Casserley; my asking FURT added a further music with its own history. (Evan Parker).Commissioned by Donaueschinger Musiktage 2003. Previously unissued.

A 2012 set of trio improvisations by Evan Parker playing soprano saxophone, Mark Nauseef playing metallophone based percussion and Toma Gouband playing lithophone based percussion. Recorded by Evan's friend and brilliant engineer Adam Skeaping in the warm, natural acoustics of St Peters, Whitstable. "Lacking the pyrotechnics of some of his recordings, such as his solo circular-breathing marathons, As the Wind is a slow-burner that ends up being just as impressive in different ways. In time, as well as one of Parker's best it seems likely to be judged one of 2016's best releases." All About Jazz

In his upstate NY secret laboratory, home-based in Poughkeepsie, Joe McPhee diligently documented his activities throughout the '70s, with the help of Craig Johnson, the producer who started CjR as an outlet for McPhee's music. Among the unreleased tapes waxed in that span, Alone Together is unique and especially beautiful. Like Sound on Sound (released by Corbett vs. Dempsey in 2010), these recordings make use of multitrack recording, overdubbing McPhee upon McPhee, however where those earlier recordings had an experimental tendency, the Alone Together tracks were more compositional in nature, allowing the multi-instrumentalist to build and sculpt each piece, creating complete wind ensembles one track at a time. In 1974 and then again in a longer session in 1979, McPhee recorded in concise solo, duo, and trio contexts, and in more extensive brass and reed quartets – all McPhee, all the time. Going head-to-head with the best of the saxophone foursomes of the era, McPhee is a one-man-WSQ, his probing investigations and lyrical statements as incisive and insightful as those of his best-known recordings. McPhee's own enthusiasm for these never-before-heard recordings betrays their significance in his large and ever-mounting discography. Corbett vs. Dempsey is honored, after so long, to finally make them available.

A tremendous collection of recordings from famed Fluxus poet and artist Jackson Mac Low (1922-2004).  Originally published on New Wilderness Audiographics as a cassette in 1977, these recordings have been cleaned up and remastered by Sean McCann in 2018.  Jackson’s beautiful text formulas are supplemented by stereo multi-tracking, creating a spatial jungle of wordplay. One gem of this CD is the live foray into tape manipulation from 1966 featuring the assistance of James Tenney and Max Neuhaus. It is fabled that they took Jackson’s voice and slowed it down to a guttural thunderstorm during playback, resulting in a manic blend of words darting through a black cloud of reverberation.  Only a small amount of Jackson’s sound poetry is available, making this collection a delight to swallow and digest. Produced with Charlie Morrow, we are thrilled to re-present this history to the ears of both young and old. Edition of 250 Glass-mastered CD housed in Jewel-case 8-page insert with scores and introduction by Charlie Morrow

Danish pianist Tom Prehn was one of the first Europeans to deeply explore free music. With his quartet featuring Fritz Krogh on tenor saxophone, Poul Ehlers on bass, and Finn Slumstrup on drums, Prehn recorded Axiom in October, 1963, for Sonet, though it went unreleased until 2015 because the band felt that their music had moved beyond it already. To hear the music they were talking about, one could only turn to two privately-made reel-to-reel tapes, Centrifuga and Sohlverv, recorded in August, 1964, and January, 1965, respectively. Both sessions took place under casual circumstances at Prehn’s summer cottage outside Aarhus, but the music was dead serious – some of the most adventurous improvising yet made by a group on the continent. --- Piano: Tom PrehnBass: Poul EhlersDrums: Finn SlumstrupTenor Saxophone: Fritz KroghRemastered by Sigurd Djurhuus ---TracklistA Side A 22:28B Side B 21:49 --- Released: Corbett vs Dempsey

Recorded live by Takeo Suetomi at Café Amores, Hofu, April 29, 1996.The CD version includes a bonus track (“Two Chaps 1“). New, unsealed, includes Obi