A sequence of six duo improvisations from Evan Parker on tenor saxophone & Sten Sandell on church organ recorded at Evan Parker's recording studio of choice, St Peter's in Whitstable, UK, 2009.

Concert recordings from the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans and the Seattle Asian Arts Museum from the trio of Evan Parker (sax), Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano) and Paul Lytton (percussion), 2 CDs of stunning and surprising improv from three masters of the form.

OTOROKU is proud to reissue Evan Parker's first solo LP "Saxophone Solos". Recorded by Martin Davidson in 1975 at the Unity Theatre in London, at that time the preferred concert venue of the Musicians' Co-operative, Parker's densely woven and often cyclical style has yet to form; instead throaty murmurs appear under rough hewn whistles and calls - the wildly energetic beginnings of an extraordinary career.  Reissued with liner notes from Seymour Wright in an edition of 500.  --- "The four pieces across the two sides of Saxophone Solos – Aerobatics 1 to 4 – are testing, pressured, bronchial spectaculars of innovation and invention and determination. Evan tells four stories of exploration and imagination without much obvious precedent. Abstract Beckettian cliff-hanging detection/logic/magic/mystery. The conic vessel of the soprano saxophone here recorded contains the ur-protagonists: seeds, characters, settings, forces, conflicts, motions, for new ideas, to delve, to tap and to draw from it story after story as he has on solo record after record for 45 years. ‘Aerobatics 1-3’ were recorded on 17 June 1975, by Martin Davidson at Parker’s first solo performance. This took place at London’s Unity Theatre in Camden. ‘Aerobatics 4’ was recorded on 9 September the same year, by Jost Gebers in the then FMP studio in Charlottenburg, Berlin. Music of balance and gravity, fulcra, effort, poise and enquiry. Sounds thrown and shaken into and out of air, metal and wood. It is – as the titles suggest – spectacular." - Seymour Wright, 2020.

Evan Parker's monumental LP of solo soprano saxophone improvisations, recorded direct-cut and issued by Incus in 1978. Lovingly reissued by Treader — the CD is from PSI — using the original stampers, in a gorgeous hand-assembled sleeve, with glossy front and matt back, flaps out. Unmissable. ‘Parker uses rapid tonguing techniques and circular breathing to create a sound all his own, marked by the simultaneous intonation of multiple notes. One hears a note as well as all the residual tones around it; each breath ends up sounding like a battle between the different registers of the horn. At various times, Parker’s saxophone sounds like dolphin speech, electronic tape squeals, or human murmurs; namely, anything but what it actually is. His language on the instrument is essential listening for anyone interested in acoustic experimental music’ (AllMusic). ‘Eight years after Topography Of The Lungs, and two years after his Saxophone Solos, Monoceros was the most muscular statement of Evan Parker’s solo saxophone muse. Superbly recorded, it seemed to place the listener within the chaotic air flows of the saxophone’s own tubing. Philip Clark said: ‘Parker’s dialogue with the saxophone throws up so much that is unexpected, and indeed unknowable, that the problem he faces is how to keep pace with his own invention’’ (The Wire, Best Albums Of The Year).

FOUICKFOUICK: a duo born of coagulation between a sound distiller and a film maker. Jean-Marc Foussat - Blick Together, in the studios of Fou Records, they survey the continents of musical and narrative improvisation. A kind of renovation like a "musical story". While one frames a musical invention, the other unfolds a velum of imprecation. Jean-Marc Foussat extracted from his synthesizer, toys, appeaux and his voice, some musical possibilities. Note tutoring, voice scanning, incongruous interference, everything participates in the invention of an unlikely but audible aggregate. In parallel, Blick impregnates. From his breath to the microphone, he lets go all words spoken live from his visions. Profiting, chewing, observation allow the twists and turnouts of elucidy but audible stories Mastic Boréal brings together 4 of these musical tales. Their textures are obscure. Their torment is alive. Their wanderings remain without cards. Their thorns are catching. Their confessions deal with ear infections. Interference between music and voice is intertwined. The borders are blurring. It doesn't matter the loss of reference. Let us continue to move forward in this suffocating fog. Let's shrew and cough a glimpse of black shores. The contours of the horizons are caulked with mastic. Only a few reflections awaken us borealis.

‘Karnofsky’s Score’ is the imagined soundtrack of a film yet to exist and of lives dealing with existence itself. Inspired by the Karnofsky Performance Scale, a scoring system widely used in medical oncology where 100 equals ‘normal’ and 0 equals ‘dead’, artist Teresa Cos undertakes a journey where numbers are shuffled and time is stretched. Part of a body of work that includes visual scores and a forthcoming film sharing the album’s narration, ‘Karnofsky’s Score’ may indeed be guided by the ghost of David A. Karnofsky himself, the pioneer oncologist of the 1950s and 60s who had earlier conducted experiments with the US Army Chemical Warfare Service. He died of cancer aged 55, becoming subject to the system he created.Recorded and mixed while on artist residencies across Europe, the album is built from a composition of guitar improvisations running through a four-track looping recorder, delay, and pitch-shifting pedals, with additional harmonica on the last twin tracks. The left/right monitoring that persists throughout the composition echoes a wavering between the extreme poles of the 0/100 scale, but is contradicted by a whole palette of emotions, at times scattered, at times doomed, at times joyfully playful. Minimal and lyrical, the atmosphere is haunting, occasionally eerie.Nothing lasts too long. The play of ‘Karnofsky’s Score’ is in the interval between two octaves in music, the extremes of a scale which in the abstraction of western notation run upwards and downwards to infinity, in reality until the limits of embodied perception are met. 

The Story of Rêverie Luca and Markus began playing together in 2005, when Markus formed an international ensemble to play at the Suoni delle Dolomiti festival. One year later they performed as a quintet in St. Maternus in Cologne, Germany, where they recorded a live album, which initiated the project called “Flowers of Now”. (Intuitive Music in Cologne, Horus Label, 2008). Later on Markus played on two tracks of Luca’s Tacet (Extreme Records, 2008) and on the double album Songs/Signs of Luca’s project Flos with Stefano Castagna (Ritmo&Blu, 2018). More live performances followed. On July 9th, 2021 Markus visited Luca while traveling to some concerts in central Italy. They set up in Luca’s studio and recorded a fully improvised set, where nothing was previously arranged or agreed. The full set is captured on this album: four takes without any overdubs. The music reflects the meeting of two different musical stories, each musician reacting to the other in a continuous flow of inspiration, tension and release. Their dedication to listening to each other is tangible and yet they still maintain their personal presence - to call or answer and to move together into unknown territories. You can almost grasp the musicians’ wonder at the evolving and unpredictable sonic landscape. Acoustic sounds interweave with electronic parts in constant exploration with the spontaneity of intuitive composition. A deep sense of space and dreamlike atmospheres emerge from the music, the dimensions of width, depth and time seem to expand.” 

Thomas McCarthy’s CD Comfort features 10 songs handed down through his Irish Traveller family tradition. Only a few are commonly sung, and most are particular to Thomas’s family branch.  

Full colour sleeve includes track insert in Japanese

FP 03 Vega by Andrew Chalk in handmade slipcase with wooden spine

Junk Box Natsuki Tamura --Trumpet Satoko Fujii --Piano John Hollenbeck--Percussion

Banksia Trio's third album is a studio recording of the culmination of a live tour held during the pandemic. In addition to the members' five original songs, songs by Masaaki Kikuchi, Nick Drake, and Paul Motian were recorded on analog master tape. In addition to the richness of overtones produced by analog recording, the hybrid use of high-resolution digital recording technology allows for extremely natural and nuanced sonic expression. “Piano, bass, drums. From the moment each note of each instrument rises, it slowly decays into silence. We focus on the acoustic phenomenon of this single note, and as the sound disappears. Dive into the ocean of decay. Listening immersively and weaving the next sound is a very introspective, prayer-like process for each of Takashi Sugawa, Masaki Hayashi, and Shun Ishiwaka. I would be happy if you could enjoy this band ensemble, which exquisitely coexists with its own spiritual and personal sound world, while the music itself steadily moves forward.'' (Sugawa)  . Drizzling Rain (Masabumi Kikuchi) 2. MASKS (Takashi Sugawa) 3. Abacus (Paul Motian) 4. Bird Flew By (Nick Drake) 5. Doppio Movimento (Masaki Hayashi) 6. Stefano (Takashi Sugawa) 7. Siciliano (Shun Ishiwaka) 8. Messe 1 (Shun Ishiwaka) 9. I Should Care (Axel Stordahl and Paul Weston) 10. Wonderful One (Paul Motian) 須川崇志　Takashi Sugawa (bass, cello) 林正樹　Masaki Hayashi (piano) 石若駿　Shun Ishiwaka (drums) 

2004 release. Special edition of Sacred Bordello (originally published by Black Dog Publishing) bundled with a limited edition CD released by Alga Marghen. As one of the most influential figures of experimental music and performance, Charlemagne Palestine has remained an enigma. Unlike his illustrious contemporaries Terry Riley, John Cale, Steve Reich, and Phillip Glass, little has been written on Palestine and his continuing influence. In his own right, he was and remains today a pivotal personality whose research in musical composition and performance has been characterized over the years by its incantatory repetitiveness, its flamboyance, and its mysticism, but also by its violence. Born in Brooklyn in 1947, his first musical experiences were as a cantorial singer in the synagogues of New York. Through his contact with Tony Conrad, Palestine was soon introduced to the thriving experimental art scene of the late 1960s. The circles around Andy Warhol and La Monte Young provided a crucial backdrop for Palestine's work, which increasingly extended beyond the scope of music. His groundbreaking appearances, which combined violent piano playing, performance, video, and installation, were considered to be amongst the most radical musical experiences, leaving a lasting impression on followers such as Arto Lindsay, Glenn Branca, Sonic Youth, and the Sex Pistols, as well as Tintin creator Hergé. Palestine's epic durations, microtonal trembles, and dense overtones are reoccurring features in contemporary industrial and electronic music. Sacred Bordello is a flexi-cover sewn, full color, 192-page, 11" x 9" book that includes essays, scores, and original photos of performances and installations, providing the most complete documentation of Charlemagne Palestine's art. The included CD features an hour-long recording of a lecture that Palestine gave on March 7th, 1975 at the ArtNow Centre in Canada. Following the performance of a strumming music concert, Palestine freely speaks about his music and philosophy, involving the students in some kind of magic ritual. Starting as a question-and-answer conversation, the lecture develops into an intimate speech in which particularly private subjects are discussed. The CD also includes a previously unreleased multi-layer voice study from the early 1960s.