Ted Byrnes is a drummer/percussionist living in Los Angeles. An alumnus of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, he comes from a jazz background and has since made his home in the worlds of free improvisation, new music, electro-acoustic music, and noise.Ted primarily works in ad hoc improvisational settings, but has long standing improvisational groups including duos with Jeff Parker, Chris Cooper, Charlie Mumma, Sam McKinlay, William Hutson, and a trio with Jacob Wick and Michael Foster, among others. Additionally, Ted has played in duo, trio, or ensemble settings with Mazen Kerbaj, Matt Weston, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, Charlemagne Palestine, Alfred 23 Harth, Arrington de Dionyso, Jaap Blonk, Torsten Muller, Kim Myhr, Jim Denley, Lloyd Honeybrook, Chris Schlarb, Mike Watt, Paul Masvidal, the LAFMS (including Smegma, Airway, Ace Farren Ford's Artificial Art Ensemble, Rick and Joe Potts, Fredrik Nilsen, Tom Recchion, Vetza, etc.), Sissy Spacek, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, and more. Released: Krim Kram, 2023

Rick Potts is a founding LAFMS member, active in experimental music since the early 70's, and enormously influential on five decades worth of musical practitioners with a penchant for outer/freakdom sounds. Don't Think is a 2CD compilation of rare and unreleased recordings, spanning 37 tracks and 2.5 hours, and covering the entire range of Potts' musical output - from song-based new wave/art rock to more abstract loop-based noise (note the lowercase 'n') and mutant disco (disco of the Dennis Duck variety that is). Also included is a 12 page booklet of art and notes."When I was a teenager I discovered research that the brain had two separate parts, a logical left side and a creative right side. I decided that the left, the logical, rational, critical side was filtering out too much of the right side's intuitive brilliance and cancelling out thoughts before I was aware of them. I wanted to tap into those discarded ideas so I developed ways to avoid the editing that the left side was doing to the right side's mysterious stream of consciousness. Spontaneity and improvisation in the early days of the LAFMS was one way. Making drawings without planning them sometimes brought surprising results. Creatures emerged before my eyes one shape at a time. I practiced speaking backwards, wrote the first thing that popped into my mind and spoke before I knew what I was saying. Experimenting with freeing myself from the critical inner voice let magical things happen. Creating this way puts me into a zone that feels like a high and it's addictive. It feels best when I don't know what I'm doing but I do it anyway. For me, reason is unreasonable."- Rick Potts  Released: Krim Kram, 2023

Cyess Afxzs is a relatively new harsh noise project from Belfast-born, Swiss-based artist, Stuart McCune. Over the past year, McCune has released a string of highly acclaimed tapes and CDs on many of the most vital noise labels currently active, including Rural Isolation Project, Satatuhatta, Abhorrent A.D., and White Centipede Noise. Much has been made of McCune's use of sounds and structural elements not commonly associated with contemporary harsh noise, and the project's conceptual alignment with abstract art (most obviously through releases directly referencing Max Ernst, Antoni Tàpies, Alfred Kubin, and Daniel Richter). While it is true that contemporary harsh noise has mostly shied away from overt art world influence (with some obvious exceptions), it is worth remembering that noise has a long and existential relationship with abstract art, Merzbow being perhaps the most obvious and literal example. And, although occupying a very different sonic terrain, the likes of P16.D4, Achim Wollscheid, and Rudolf Eb.er, to name just a few examples, all have long histories of incorporating conceptual or abstract art practices in their work. All that is to say that there is nothing that warms my cockles quite as much as when this lowly genre called "noise" that we love so dearly (with all its inherent contradictions) reaches out of the gutter and pulls influence from otherwise "respectable" art forms. Whether that elevates noise or debases art is open to interpretation.No Bull One Left Behind was recorded between August and October 2022 and expands upon techniques explored in previous releases, offering perhaps the widest palette of sounds and compositional approaches to date. The album opens with what my grandmother, as a lifelong harsh noise aficionado, would have described as an absolute banger, a roaring behemoth of joyous blasting, before subtly shifting gear to more experimental ground. There is a very singular musical quality to each of the tracks, each containing its own distinctive character. And while the album as a whole certainly falls within the harsh noise realm, the lines between noise and musicality are continuously blurred.  Released: Krim Kram 2023

Recording of the premiere performance of the "Weihnachtsoratorium" (Christmas Oratorio), an organ concert composed and played by the four hands of Daniel Löwenbrück & Fabian Löwenbrück. Performed December 26th, 2006 on the Hugo Meyer organ of the Evangelische Kirche in Lebach, Germany.Daniel Löwenbrück (b.1974) is a German performance- and sound-artist, creator of tape-music, curator and (sometimes) visual-artist.As a performance artist and composer of tape-music he performed internationally since the late 90's as part of the Schimpfluch-Gruppe (with Rudolf Eb.er, Dave Phillips, Joke Lanz), as a duo with singer and performance artist Doreen Kutzke, as part of Ohne (with Tom Smith, Dave Phillips, Reto Mäder), with Swedish conceptual artist Leif Elggren, with Brazilian video- and sound-artist Marcellvs L. as Stallgewitter, and solo as Raionbashi and under his own name. He performed in New York, Sao Paulo, Bordeaux, Paris, Moscow, Minsk, London, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Chiang Mai, Tokyo, Osaka, Rotterdam, Vienna etc. Released: Krim Kram 2022

Andy heck boyd, b 1981, lived in new hampshire for 40 years, permanently moved to kentucky in 2021, attended college in boston for tv/film production and filmmaking in maine dropped out of both classes in spring and then winter 2001, diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2002, worked at a gas station for several years before going on disability in 2010, took up drawing and painting and video making and began making cassette tape recordings in 2017, living hermit type life in small room in exeter nh for 11 years before moving to kentucky, took up tape recording to "be a writer" to write novels, chronic tendinitis from overuse of computer mouse making animation and daily painting and drawing with no stretching exercising etc, wanted to write but typing caused too much pain, and began to experiment with tape recording after getting into it around early 2017, never performed live, has had some painting exhibitions with galleries, a few in seattle wa at season gallery, a few with buoy gallery in kittery maine, a few in nyc one with serving the people ran by lucien smith, has a few comics published, casper the french inquisition named blob, and my name is greg, dracula citgo a screenplay, and slot of banji 2 by wilt press in maine, currently lives in mt sterling kentucky with his wife, kasper heckOn 'blondie - thanks for sharing':i go out every day with a tape recorder and a new tape all the time, i record daily things, but i also give it a little break every now and again and switch tools to my super 8 camera or drawing or collages etc, and come back to tape recording with fresh perspective and new ideas etc, for this album its a mix of different things, the first two tracks were part of a five song recording i made in june 2022 using an amp and sk-1 keyboard, and microphone, i came up with lyrics on the spot and picked samples on the spot too

Since reactivating in the wake of the essential 2009 archival BUFMS box set, 'Induced Musical Spasticity', Bren't Lewiis Ensemble have released more than 40 titles of the finest avant ear wonk around. Much of this activity has proceeded with relatively little fanfare. Perhaps the number of releases is intimidating to some, or maybe well-adjusted society simply has little need for (in their own words) "screeches, recitations, injured vocalizations, inexplicable flurries of bleeps, bloops 'n' splats, and general oh-my-god-how-long-does-this-go-on-for" (personally, I find this latter scenario difficult to accept; hence the desire to release yet more of these bleeps, bloops 'n' splats into the world). Or, and this is the hypothesis that I am advancing, it may be due to the fact that much of this material has been released on that most maligned of formats, the humble CDr (the disdain for which, I emphatically do not share by the way). So, to test this hypothesis, here is a brand new Bren't Lewiis Ensemble album on the Mark Knopfler approved "real" CD format.The sound of this CD is classic latter day Bren't Lewiis Ensemble: heavily edited sound collage; plenty of Orchid Spangiafora style word play; the sound of malfunctioning, sputtering machines; instruments/objects that are blown, shaken, scraped, and generally sabotaged in various ways; et cetera. If the CIA had access to this kind of arsenal during MKUltra, who knows what kind of damage they could have inflicted. Krim Kram - 2022

Debut solo CD by Wuhan-born, London-based artist, Zheng Hao, who also performs in the duos Oishi (with Ren Shang) and ecm (with Joseph Khan). Four lean and sinewy improvisations; the sound of tightly controlled buzzing and rippling electric currents, pointillistic splintering rhythms and textures, sparse jagged incursions, and wiry static blasts. In the artist's own words, Breaks explores "rhythmic patterns from dusty potentiometers and dirty electronic circuits in modular synthesis improvisation". Possible signposts include Jake Meginsky, Voice Crack, etc. Maximal results with minimal means. Should appeal equally to EAI and noise nerds alike.Released 2024 - Krim Kram

Turner's supportive playing is well matched with Van Hove's probing and voluminous drive, and is perfectly in tune during the introspective moments. Both of which occur amply during the 26 minute opener 'Life Dealers'. The duo's repartee is in fine order from the get-go. For example, about ten minutes in, moments of light pianistic whimsy meets Turner's crisp percussion and the two instruments begin pushing each other to extremes. 'Shopped', the second track, is a concise seven minutes and begins on a more tenuous and mysterious ground than the exuberant opener. Van Hove's chords are bright and welcoming, but unusual. Their intrigue emanates from their lush and unique voicing. The duo's dramatic dynamics are certainly present on the twenty minute 'The Hat'. Van Hove has all the pedals pressed as he builds a wall of sound that we would all happily pay for. This track ends with Van Hove suddenly dropping out, giving Turner a few moments of skittering solo percussion alone time. Van Hove eventually rejoins to bring the epic to a close. The last track, 'More Light' is another terse follow up. Where the previous tune was a dense construction, this one is structurally light and open, like a sweet digestif after the heavy aural meal. - Paul Acquaro

Before any instrumentation, Francisco Mela addresses his fellow musicians, pianist Matthew Shipp and bassist William Parker, with a sense of anticipation and affirmation, “Okay guys, ready? Rolling!” The sense of camaraderie and his artist-focused approach is heard throughout the album’s majestic improvisation—as well as in its inspiration, dedicated to Mela’s longtime musical partner, the legendary jazz musician McCoy Tyner. Tyner was well-known for his boundless musical talent, and perhaps best-known for playing in John Coltrane’s quartet, which revolutionized the jazz world and reverberated through the music world at large. But it was his mentorship that truly touched Francico Mela: Tyner encouraged him to explore the boundaries of both his personal expression and his musical ability, affirming the philosophical conviction that music was a gateway to liberation. That pursuit of freedom was a lifelong aspiration, and one borne from community. Mela recalls performing at New York City’s Blue Note with McCoy Tyner, on a specific night when maestro Cecil Taylor came to listen to McCoy’s trio. Tyner and Taylor shared a conversation, and afterwards Tyner returned backstage, gently confiding in Mela, “I wish I were that free. We play music to free our souls.” Likewise, Tyner encouraged Mela to pursue his broadening interests, inspiring Francisco to embrace experimentation and musical freedom. In Music Frees Our Souls Vol. 1, Mela, Shipp and Parker compose an album that is equally innovative and welcoming, offering the best of experimental jazz and paying homage to McCoy Tyner’s indelible creative influence. This is the first chapter of Francisco Mela’s Music Frees Our Souls trilogy dedicated to McCoy, always featuring William Parker on bass but with different piano players on each volume. The album, Francisco Mela’s second from 577 Records following MPT Trio (2021), will be available on limited edition blue vinyl (100 copies), black vinyl, CD, digital. Music Frees Our Souls Vol. 2 & 3 will be released in the near future. 

Can music liberate us? Francisco Mela, who worked and partnered with the legendary jazz musician McCoy Tyner, believes so. On this album, the second volume of Music Frees Our Souls, Mela collaborates with pianist Cooper-Moore and bassist William Parker to build a 2-part extended track project of advanced dialogue between 3 of the genre's most important instruments. Tyner was well-known for his boundless musical talent, and perhaps best-known for playing in John Coltrane’s quartet, which revolutionized the jazz world and fundamentally influenced the music world at large. Despite his indelible, wide-reaching impact on experimental jazz, it was Tyner’s mentorship that truly touched Francisco Mela: Tyner encouraged him to explore the boundaries of both his personal expression and his musical ability, affirming the philosophical conviction that music was a gateway to liberation. This album is again dedicated to Tyner’s mentorship and encouragement, suggesting we all embrace experimentation and musical freedom. This second volume/album will be available on limited edition burgundy red vinyl, black vinyl, CD, or download in January 2023. Music Frees Our Souls Vol. 3 is also planned for release in the near future. Cooper-Moore - Piano William Parker - Bass Francisco Mela - Drums Recorded November 13, 2020 by Jeremy Loucas at Douglass Recording, Brooklyn, New York

The Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra was created in 1971 by an “old hand” of French free jazz, François Tusques. Free Jazz, was also the name of the recording made by the pianist and other like-minded Frenchmen (Michel Portal, François Jeanneau, Bernard Vitet, Beb Guérin and Charles Saudrais) in 1965. But, six years later Tusques had had his fill of free jazz. After having wondered, together with Barney Wilen (Le Nouveau Jazz) or even solo (Piano Dazibao and Dazibao N°2), if free jazz wasn’t a bit of a dead end, Tusques formed the Inter Communal, an association under the banner of which the different communities of the country would come together and compose, quite simply. If at first the structure was made up of professional musicians from the jazz scene it would rapidly seek out talent in the lively world of the MPF (Musique Populaire Française).{French Popular Music, ndlt} As with L’Inter Communal a few years earlier, Le Musichien follows on from the group of varying musicians that Tusques had conceived as a “people’s jazz workshop”. In 1981, at the then famous Paris address, 28 rue Dunois, the pianist sang with his partner Carlos Andreu an “afro-Catalan tale”. Over a slow bass line (exceptional work from Jean-Jacques Avenel) backed by percussion from Kilikus, saxophones (Sylvain Kassap and Yebga Likoba) and trombone (Ramadolf) which presented a myriad of constellations. The sky has no limits, let’s make the most of it. The following year, at the ‘Tombées de la Nuit’ festival in Rennes, bassist Tanguy Le Doré would weave with Tusques the fabric on which would evolve an explosive “brotherhood of breath”: Bernard Vitet on trumpet, Danièle Dumas and Sylvain Kassap on saxophones, Jean-Louis Le Vallegant and Philippe Le Strat on… bombards. With hints of modal jazz inspired by Coltrane or Pharoah Sanders, the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra is an ecumenical project which speaks to the whole world. 

These are recordings from the Berlin club Au Topsi Pohl where [ism] played 4-nights in a row, May 18-21 2022. For the concerts a Bösendorfer grand piano was brought in to the small club - the trio barely fit on stage, but the acoustic sound, all the more omnipresent and precise, was embraced by a highly crafted and risky playing evoking notions of dreams, form and human vibrations.  Maua means flowers in Swahili.

'If I don't make it, I love u’ is Still House Plants’ third LP and the fullest embodiment of their sound to date. Where ‘Fast Edit’ formed with quick attachment and jump cuts, ‘If I don't make it’ is shaped by persistence - a commitment to the songs that makes the music solid, warmer and accepted. Marking the trio’s decade of friendship, this is the first record written whilst all live in the same city since 2017's ‘Assemblages’. The band rehearsed it relentlessly, playing for nobody except themselves, consistently building support for one another and growing the way they play. Jess’ voice is deeper. Fin’s guitar is full size, richer. David drums harder. Focused on one point together, everyone gets bigger and nothing falls apart. The guitar and the drums blend, raise the voice, make room for what is being said, what is felt. When able to finally record, production allowed layers, gave elasticity, a chance to fully stretch. Playing with length and connections, the band brought in analogue techniques - a Lesley cabinet on ‘Headlight’, sidechaining the snare with the guitar, pushing vocals through cheap DJ software - each process an attempt to bring one instrument closer to another, to give bass, body, backup. ‘If I don't make it, I love u’ seeks beauty, holds feeling maximum and builds surety with its sound. The most generous SHP record to date, the music is wide open, demands less. Play it again, it will come clear. --- Finlay Clark / guitarJess Hickie-Kallenbach / vocalsDavid Kennedy / drums

“Wonderful energy, constant motion, and roiling in noise. And immense amount of grit and power.” Corey Mwamba (Freeness, BBC Radio 3) Nautiloid capsule tumbles across field lines. An impracticably agile, graceful derailment. About this trio: www.busterandfriends.com/juno credits released September 1, 2023 Han-earl Park: guitar. Lara Jones: saxophone and electronics. Pat Thomas: electronics. Music by Han-earl Park, Lara Jones and Pat Thomas. Recorded live March 20, 2022, Cafe OTO, London. Recorded by Shaun Crook. Mixed by Han-earl Park. Mastered by Chris Sharkey.

Jean-Luc Guionnet DYSLEXIC HARP (DECIPHERED IN THE DARK) For pedal harp solo / Pour harpe de concert solo Dedicated to / dédicacé à Rhodri Davies     Rhodri Davies: pedal harp / harpe de concert   Recorded, edited, mixed and mastered by Jean-Luc Guionnet / Enregistré, monté, mixé et masterisé par Jean-Luc Guionnet. Recorded 17th and 18th of January 2010 at q-02, Brussels / Enregistré les 17 et 18 janvier 2010 au q-02, Bruxelles. Design by / Concu par Anna Peaker. Etchings by / Gravures de Jean-Luc Guionnet.

Rhodri Davies self reissue of fantastic acoustic lap harp solo record. First released on LP with Alt Vinyl, av057 (2014) alongside the amplified 'Wound Response', 'An Air Swept Clean of All Distance' sees the harp tuned to a different set of fixed pitches and played without preperation or distortion.  "...hearing An Air Swept Clean of All Distance I think also of Cy Twombly, burning a path to the ancient classical world through a mess of rough scribble, vivid marks, smears and graffiti. There is a static character to the playing here, rising and falling, arrested and stuttering, rolling and tumbling...returning compulsively to the same passage as if caught in that same tangled web of strings once violently cut, now reconstituted into a set of revenant problems." - David Toop, 2020.  “Davies settles obsessively on tumbling phrases, arpeggios and articulate rhythms, turning them over and over, letting them develop only within strict limits, as though this fine, prolific adventurous musician is freshly discovering a harp that has been there all along.” - Julian Cowley, Wire Magazine, 2014 --- Rhodri Davies / telyn benglin (lap harp) --- I / For Elliw & Brychan Recordiwyd ar Ionawr 31, 2014 yn Stiwdios Blank, Newcastle upon Tyne / Recorded on 31st of January 2014 at Blank Studios, Newcastle upon Tyne. Cynhyrchwyr gweithredol / Executive producrs: Richard Dawson, Graham Thrower. Recordiwyd, cymysgwyd a meistrolwyd gan / Recorded, mixed and mastered by Sam Grant. Dylunio gan / Design by Anna Peaker. Darlun gan / Drawing by Jean-Luc Guionnet. Benthycwyd y teitlau o weithiau / Titles borrowed from the works of Carlos Castaneda, Kate Fagan, Alec Finlay, Nathaniel Mackey, Redell Olsen, James Purdy, Sun Ra, Nick Thurston, Sue Tompkins. Rhyddhawyd An Air Swept Clean of All Distance yn gyntaf ar finyl gan Alt Vinyl, av057 (2014) / An Air Swept Clean of All Distance was first released on LP with Alt Vinyl, av057 (2014). Diolch i / Thank you to John Bisset, John Butcher, Angharad Davies, Ann Davies, John Davies, Richard Dawson, Angharad Closs Stephens and Graham Thrower. AMGEN CD003

The Obliquity Trio return to Bo Weavil for a blistering live set, incorporating elements of pure, old-school swing, extreme, dissonant free-music and plain old weirdness. Alan Wilkinson, John Edwards and Steve Noble are on fire here, throwing everything they've got into a relatively short, sub-forty-minute set, which despite passages of rampant intensity never gets out of hand - there's a thread of warmth and humour running through these exchanges, with the eight-minute coda 'Recoil' being an especially enjoyable (and very approachable) sequence of the recording, sure to satisfy the broadest range of improv fans.