Free release from Sphagnum Moss to mark the turning of another year. OTO wishes you all a great time over the festive period and many thanks as ever for all the support! Half festive sound collage, half yuletide mix (or, at times, seemingly several mixes laid on top of one another), Sphagnum Moss takes a phantasmagorical trip alongside ghosts of Christmas past, present and future in a clamorous distillation of the season. From the opening massed pealing of church bells to stratified, spectral choirs; carolling brass bands to a fragmentary, yearning pop reverie; crackling wrapping to a convivial fireside poem, Sphagnum Moss brews a heady infusion of holiday cheer across 30 densely packed minutes. -- Many sounds created by Sphagnum Moss. Many other sounds sourced from: 15HVojta_Michael / aktivfilm / alienistcog / alorange / binG-Cr0ss-bE / Clagnar / dav_ID_b0wee / Davor / Deenmar_tin / felix.blume / Garuda1982 / Guialgarve / guyburns / Gvido / ID_23 / jarlathmc / jasminmadalen / jebwhylie / Jorj_Mykal / keithpeter / klankbeeld / klau78 / marfack / Marschal / Mar.Sounds / M_Riah_caree / nervousneal / nomadas / organicmanpl / Robhog / SavReese / simongray / SpaceboysAgency / TimOut789 / tonant / Urkki69 / Vitouliss / Walter_Odington / waterpump / Zabuhailo Huge thanks to every one. Most can be found at the incredible resource that is freesound.org

Pleased to present a beautiful, otherworldly set from France-born, London-based violin and viola player, Agathe Max, recorded at OTO in August 2024. Beginning with tentatively scattered pizzicato notes that fall like a fine rain about the room, it isn’t long before an elegiac solo line emerges, weaving a bittersweet reverie of loss and longing. Fragments of voice and birdsong combine with the strings to expansive effect and soon you find yourself far from the confines of a concrete-floored room in East London. As the set progresses, Max’s poignant, yearning playing style is filtered and reflected back upon itself, sometimes as an equally melodic partner, and sometimes twisted and modulated into something much more uncanny. Layers of bowed notes entwine with tumbling electronics to create an enveloping bed of dreamy phantasy. Through it all, staggered, loping percussion paces the sonic landscape, as much to provide an anchor through the soaring string work as it is a rhythmic device. A feeling of weightlessness abounds throughout this set - a pervasive timelessness that makes the sense of bewilderment all the stronger when, after 20 minutes or so the spell breaks and you find yourself back in the room. Thankfully, Max has one last, loftily ascending coda to offer though; as legato strings swoop and glide in ever rising patterns, a driving rhythm roots us to the earth and it is all we can do to gaze up at the spiralling airs disappearing away into the ether. -- Recorded by Kevin ShoemakerMixed and mastered by Oli BarrettCover by Oli Barrett

Wildly exhilarating solo drum kit performance from Crystabel Efemena Riley. Recorded on the first night of Incapacitants residency at OTO in September, Riley presents an absolutely no-holds-barred set that delves deep into the textural and timbral qualities of the instrument. Though recorded on a single drum kit, multiple mic placements take the sound and reshape it in unexpected ways. This multi-strand approach to amplification becomes an integral part of the kit, with Riley using pedals to control the volume and balance of the various channels. Distorted toms roll and shudder, snare hits peak with such an intensity that at times it sounds as if the drum could be filled with gravel, and densely overlapping rhythms whirl and contort with an unflagging propulsive momentum. Through it all, deep, resonant bass synths surge and swell; at times the percussive battery subsides to be leave an enveloping wash of bass tones in isolation, and you can almost imagine that you are nestled deep inside the drum kit itself, looking (and listening) out. This is a fully committed performance that, as a listener you cannot help but to be fully within - as disorientating as it is all-encompassing. No matter, let yourself be swept away in its eddies and flows and you will find yourself in a profoundly different place than where you started. --  Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed and mastered by Oli Barrett

Very pleased to present a bracing, protean performance from long-time collaborators, Steve Beresford (piano) and Mandhira de Saram (violin). Recorded at OTO in the first week of January 2024, Beresford and de Saram waste no time in getting the year started. Ma Petite Heffalump starts at a furious pace in a barrage of sharp, punctuated notes; four hands dance across the strings as if they were hot coals, deftly combining in breathlessly propulsive fashion. The temperature soon cools, however, settling into a richly textural, crepuscular trip that spans the full range of both instruments and beyond. There’s a relentless searching quality to Beresford and de Saram’s playing; piano and violin skittering and stalking back and forth on separate yet symbiotic paths, each weaving around the other in an intricate, labyrinthine dance, recalling the enthralling and unsettling immediacy of a dream. The destination is unknown and yet the performers seem to know exactly how to get us there in any case. Spanning just under 25 minutes but with enough depth and expansiveness to fill a release several times that length, this is a deeply immersive recording from two improvisers at the very peak of their craft. -- Recorded by Rory SalterMixed and mastered by Oli BarrettCover image by Calum Storrie

Otoroku is delighted to present an extraordinary set from harpist Rhodri Davies, an artist immersed in the worlds of improvisation, musical experimentation, composition and contemporary classical performance. He plays harp, bray harp, horse-hair harp, electric harp, and builds wind, water, ice, dry ice and fire harp installations and has released eight solo albums. In this solo harp performance, recorded at OTO in April 2024, Davies' inimitable playing style is showcased to full effect, with a sound that seems to span from Welsh harp to arched or ‘bow’ harp playing found in Sub-Saharan African traditions; Indian ragas to the circling, synthesized arpeggios of Laurie Spiegel, touching on the insistent player-piano pieces of Conlon Nancarrow along the way. Alternating between improvisations and improvisations with pre-written pieces across the set, Davies lets the distinctions between the two melt and spill over, giving space to breathe and expand. 'Gardd a Thŷ' for example (from Davies' Telyn Wrachïod release from earlier in 2024), is unfurled out to nearly twice its original album length, with Davies darting about each melody and motif like a moth around a flame. Each improvisatory section meanwhile, feels equally present and alive, with clusters of notes rising and tumbling around each other as insistent, repeated phrases ebb and flow like mantras to a rapt OTO audience. Ultimately, the overarching impression you are left with is that of Davies' intuitive and deeply felt relationship to the harp, embracing the instrument's traditions whilst constantly seeking new paths towards its future. A remarkable recording from one of the most vital artists currently working today. -- Recorded by Dan EhrlichMixed and mastered by Oli BarrettCover photo by Daryl Feehely

A masterclass in sound and texture from the Stockholm-based duo of John Chantler and Daniel M Karlsson, recorded at OTO in December 2023, following on from their ‘Hell or High Water’ release on Chantler’s 1703 Skivbolaget label the same year. From a dual synthesiser setup, the pair craft an incredibly naturalistic atmosphere - electronics not so much imitating organic sounds as creating their own little pocket of life, fully realised. The set slowly awakens like frozen ground thawing in the first spring sun; little sonic tendrils budding and reaching and gradually coalescing together in symbiosis. Ebbing and flowing, the momentum builds inexorably in ever-intricate patterns of tension and release; fractal forms unfurling and intertwining with a density that never collapses into aimless blowout even when the volume reaches a tumultuous peak. Finally, energy expended all at once, the piece falls back into a last cluster of sighing tones, and the day is done. -- Recorded by Billy Steiger Mixed and mastered by Daniel M Karlsson

As OTO approaches it's 16th year, The Uncertain Man continues his journey holding on to the shadow of a hot air balloon.These are the sounds that guide him along. Where will he land next?  Free to download one and all and you can get a copy of the full comic here. If you're a member neither download will remove a credit. Happy birthday to us.   

Preparations is an event where 23 artists create a preparation each for the grand piano. Three pianists/groups are then tasked with constructing individual live performances with the adaptable unit of preparations. For this second iteration of Preparations, musicians Finn Carter, Dear Laika and Ted Mair & Ed Bernez performed on the grand piano with preparations made by Ryoko Akama, Zoë Annesley, Jasper Appleby Sherring, Grace Black, Joseph Bradley Hill, Yasmine Brennan, Kara Chin, Gabriele Ciulli, Jacob Clayton, Leo DMB, enorê, Georgia Gendall, Harley Kuyck-Cohen, Kiran Leonard, Ruoru Mou, Siân Newlove-Drew, Karanjit Panesar, Lou Lou Sainsbury & Gabi Dao, Harry Smithson, Aga Ujma, Jake Vine, Tiffany Wellington & Isobel Whalley Payne. Finn Carter - untitled: For the preparation of the piano, Carter decided to leave the preparations untouched during his performance of the piece, with the sculptures positioned as follows: Yasmine Brennan’s My Albion?? was draped over the cast iron frame in the centre, next to Isobel Whalley Payne’s Untitled clover handkerchief which was weaved between the strings. Joseph Bradley Hill’s Jerry (an old oil can with ball bearings inside and a cloth coated wooden wedge protruding from the underside) sat on the iron frame closer to the keys, accompanied by Harley Kuyck-Cohen’s Demerara, Coffee, Tobacco (a carved wooden cat with a rotating head and beeswax eyes). Moving further up the piano, the arms of Jake Vine’s Mermaid’s Purse (a leather pouch with ceramic buttons inside) were fed in-between the strings, followed only by Gabriele Ciulli’s M & Ruoru Mou’s Scratch - Ciulli’s engraved brake pad dulled the strings with its weight, with Mou’s elongated ceramic hand causing a light resonance. Grace Black’s Conical Side Effect (a metal cone with a connected battery compartment that causes an LED to flash if the compartment is jolted) protruding behind them accompanied by Jacob Clayton’s Fishing magnet to put inside a piano, which stuck firmly to the frame, leaving the plastic keyring attached to the magnet to dangle on the strings and be moved by the vibrations. Sian Newlove-Drew’s Physics Angel was deemed too perishable to sit inside the piano itself, so for all three performances the glow-in-the-dark candle angel resided on the outer ledge of the piano, looking out at the audience. Dear Laika - Small vessel in sea green: For the performance, Thorn began by using Aga Ujma’s a midwinter night's dream (a silver aluminium wiry net of bells) as a shaken percussion instrument and Leo DMB’s waste i saw lorelei to as a mallet to hit the lower strings of the piano. The lower half of the piano was heavily prepared with Georgia Gendall’s Tapestry of Breath (a vacuum packed Ryvita with toothpaste, tic tacs and broken spaghetti), Kara Chin’s Shopping List (a large photo-covered, raisin box-filled, tentacled object), Harry Smithson’s Pothole to Aven (wrapped in Isobel Whalley Payne’s handkerchief) & Jasper Appleby-Sherring’s Praise (cavolo nero) (a bronze cast of kale atop a wooden and metal plate with locator bolts) all sat along one set of strings. Near the end of the performance Thorn used Karanjit Panesar’s Small vessel in sea green as a slide against certain strings, bifurcating them so each one would play two separate pitches on either side of the pot, reaching a sound halfway between that of a slide guitar and ondes martenot/theremin.

Take a deep breath, this one doesn’t let up for a second! Stockholm-based trio Kyosaku create a swirling maelstrom of sound from guitar, bass and drums that doesn’t so much press you back in your seat with its intensity as send you tumbling out the door and down the road. Recorded in September 2023 under their previous name of Missnöje, the group waste no time setting the pace but charge out of the gates as though this might be the last chance they've got. Finn Loxbo's squalling electric guitar and electronics setup races around the room whilst Elsa Bergman's gnarled and driven electric bass effortlessly weaves between the gaps with a playing style that is no less nimble for it's stomach-rumbling brawn. Through it all, Ryan Packard's seemingly indefatigable drumming rucks and surges in a way that leaves you reeling. This is no empty bedlam though; rather, there's a euphoric, galvanising joy to the sheer, relentless energy of it all. Kyosaku create the clamour; all you have to do is give yourself up to it. In Zen Buddhism, the keisaku is a flat wooden stick or slat used during periods of meditation to remedy sleepiness or lapses of concentration by administering a strike or series of strikes. No worries here, the strikes come thick and fast with an unrelenting fervour that should almost have you levitating by the end. But the Zen aspect is not lost, simply approached from a different direction. Noise can be meditative too, and Kyosaku create such an Augean tumult that by the end of this set's 35+ minutes you're left with a mind that feels shiny, gleaming and new. --  Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed and mastered by Oli BarrettCover photo by Erik Viklund

  Phenomenal set from 2017 courtesy of the Norwegian duo of Kim Myhr and Lasse Marhaug, which followed the release of their debut album together, On The Silver Globe. The album’s title refers to Andrzej Zulawski's powerful, hallucinatory film of the same name, and from the off the pair conjure a similar uneasy, fractured atmosphere. Fragments of sound are looped and warped, circling round in a slowly spiralling groove which is never the same twice, but flows forwards with its own inchoate dream logic. As the momentum builds, so the soft tones of the first half of the set gradually erode and fracture into a densely insistent electronic scree which seems to fill the room - a synchronous interplay with a common target - before collapsing back down into a sparse, almost conversational electronic chatter. There is an insistence to these sounds that seems to have the same prophetic urgency of some of the most visionary characters in Zulawski's science-fiction epic, promising some deeper revelation that always remains tantalisingly just ahead. As with On The Silver Globe, there can be no easy resolution, but the real epiphany is of course - as ever - in the journey. -- - Recorded by James Dunn - Mixed and mastered by Lasse Marhaug

All proceeds from this release will be donated to MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians): https://www.map.org.uk/ Thrilled to be able to share the phenomenal first meeting of this ensemble, consisting of Washington DC's Blacks' Myths - aka Luke Stewart (electric bass) and Warren Crudup (drums) - alongside Pat Thomas and Orphy Robinson's longstanding Black Top project plus incendiary sax and guitar work from Soweto Kinch and Dirar Kalash. From the first stirrings it's clear that something very special has been captured here, the sextet slowly circling and building with inexorable momentum until the energy fully coalesces and nobody looks back. There's a dexterously symbiotic interplay that would be impressive for a group a couple of decades in; that you can hear this level of chemistry from a first performance together is extraordinary. There's so much to unpack across the set that it's hard to know where to start, the group covering more ground in just under an hour than most would manage over the course of a week-long residency. The long-honed, multilayered grooves of Blacks' Myths' bass and drums blend seamlessly with Black Top's ecstatic sonic range to weave an utterly immersive sound that drives relentlessly forward to thrillingly propulsive effect. Add the incredible musicianship of Soweto Kinch and Dirar Kalash weaving deftly throughout, and the result is this joyful, galvanising rallying cry of a performance which doesn't so much lift the spirits as cast them into the stratosphere. Here's hoping this meeting is not the last. -- Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed and mastered by Oli BarrettCover design by Dirar Kalash

Thrilled to present a re-interpreted set from ENGLAND'S COUNCIL OF LEGISLATION AND GOVERNING BODY OF HYPER REAL SIMULATIONS AND CONSTRUCTS - a.k.a ecolagbohrac2021 - who, across 25 breathless minutes, crafts a giddily frenetic, genre-phobic hyperreal space that feels both viscerally corporeal and expansively liminal all at once. From start to finish, there’s a sense of relentlessly shifting ground, with fragments and snatches of different styles and sounds held briefly up to the light and then just as quickly whisked away in the dizzyingly forward momentum. This constant sense of ephemerality is not in any way unfocused though. This is a sound which seems to have a clear destination in mind at all times; there’s just an urgency in getting there which isn’t going to hang around for you to keep up. The common thread across all these tracks is a level of joyful hyperactivity and information overload that’s as exhilarating and it is disorientating, leaving with you with the sense that you’ve passed through some sort of digital hailstorm, emerging battered and buffeted but galvanised at the same time. It's a vital, cathartic journey. -- Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed by ecolagbohrsac2021Mastered by Oli BarrettCover image by ecolagbohrsac2021

An intoxicating and incredibly immersive set from Tokyo-born, Dusseldorf-based artist, Miki Yui, who over the course of 35 minutes crafts a burbling, chirruping sonic petri dish where strange electronic-organic hybrid life is conjured into being. Yui effortlessly blurs the boundaries between the electronic and the organic to a degree where it’s often hard to tell whether the result is real or only imagined. The sounds that Yui creates have such a tactile, physical quality that it almost makes you feel as if you could take schematic slices from the air in the room. Nothing is careless here, everything is considered, yet the listener has the impression that this is a soundworld spontaneously emerging into being in realtime. There is a precision to the frequencies, but it is the precision of natural balance; everything having its place in relation to everything else, as part of an artfully created auditory ecosystem. There is space for you here too. -- Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed and mastered by Oli BarrettCover photo by Foto Schiko

An enthralling set from Texas-born sound artist and composer, Bill Thompson, recorded at OTO in April 2023 and utilising an oruroborosic setup of guitar and electronics. From the start, Thompson sets the mood, a melancholy pulse establishing an inexorable momentum, around which he weaves a semi-organic machine chatter evoking Ovalcommers-era Markus Popp, or Jim O’Rourke and Peter Rehberg’s trailblazing laptop forays, in a heavy-lidded, crepuscular reverie. As the atmosphere builds, splinters of guitar notes emerge from the gloaming, not so much piercing through the fog as expanding it. Gradually the dreamlike opening ambience is singed and scorched, restlessly growing into a searing conflagration; gnarled, charred tones blistering and contorting until they burn themselves out.  Out of the smouldering embers Thompson leads us softly back full circle to the set’s moonstruck beginnings, but this is no longer the place we set out from. -- Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed and mastered by Oli Barrett and Bill ThompsonCover photo by Dawid Laskowski

A proper earth-shaker from 2014! G.E.K. is the name of a long-lasting musical partnership between composer/saxophonist Johannes Lund (also Jooklo Group, Mats Gustafsson, John Chantler) and trombonist/multi instrumentalist Maria Bertel (Selvhenter, Nina Garcia); both leading figures on the Copenhagen experimental and improv scene.  In this set, recorded as part of a double-bill with the equally incendiary Tralten Eller Utpult, G.E.K. perform fully amplified, sending wave after wave of heady brass tones through a pair of cranked guitar stacks to produce a total blowout of densely visceral catharsis. Excoriating it may be, but there's nothing nihilistic about the sound produced - the duo transcending both instruments and amplification to create a joyously heady barrage to give yourself over to, utterly. For those lucky enough to have been in the room that night (and hopefully for the handful of onlookers stood staring quizically in from the other side of OTO's rattling windows) this one has stuck long in the memory, and we're delighted to be able to share the recordings almost a decade later. -- Mixed and mastered by Oli BarrettCover photograph by Dawid Laskowski

Thrilled to present a very special recording from the great Australian cellist and composer, Judith Hamann, whose work encompasses performance, improvisation, electro-acoustic composition, site specific generative work, and micro-tonal systems in their creative practice. For this set, recorded at OTO in December 2022, Judith draws from process-based materials to do with humming and shaking, and from the start there is an immediate symbiosis between voice and body, body and instrument, with the sense that the cello is not so much being played as acting as extension of the body itself. In the opening section, Judith seemingly crafts a one-person duet between voice and cello; a simultaneous call-and-response where the relationship between the caller and responder is ever fluid and shifting. There's a generosity here in the unselfconscious intimacy of the playing, inviting the audience to witness what at first seems to be as much personal ritual as public performance. The wordless vocalisations and bowed tones circle and weave around each other, as open and ethereal as gossamer threads in sunlight. These threads hold weight, however, and as the hummed notes fall away a greater density starts to build upon the strings; harmonics and overtones pulsing in unison as shifting long notes gradually curl and fret underneath, with clusters of notes emerging and submerging with a restless momentum. Judith dextrously combines a richly evocative, ever-evolving tonality with a lightness of touch that doesn't so much belie the impressive technique displayed across both hands, as render it moot; virtuosity is fully evident here but virtuosity is not the point. As the intricately woven tones gradually fragment and pull apart in the final few moments of the set, there is a palpable sense that the space of the room has subtly shifted, through a sound as weightless as the air, and as full of life. -- Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed and mastered by Oli BarrettCover illustration by Judith Hamann

A beautiful, otherworldly set from Greek violinist, improviser, sound artist and composer, Dimos Vryzas. Recorded at OTO in January 2023, Vryzas weaves a beguiling web of sonic textures from his violin, blurring the boundaries between the acoustic and electronic parts of his set-up from the off. Intimate in detail yet at times epic in scope, Vryzas's playing spans a head-swimmingly broad range, from pin-drop level finger movements to grand, sweepingly lyrical layers of strings. Never letting the listener get too comfortable before reconfiguring the landscape, Vryzas covers an impressive amount of ground from a deceptively minimal set-up, making it easy to forget the source material of the sounds produced in the tumbling clicks and scratches of the opening sections, before the more melodic side of his playing reasserts itself once again. By turns timorous and strident, unsettling and soaring, Vryzas crafts a yearning, string-drenched world to get lost in. -- Recorded by Rory SalterMixed and mastered by Oli Barrett

Thrilled to present a vital catharsis of a set from London-based Chinese duo, Oishi! The release follows hot on the heels of 'ale… plane' on nagrania records and ‘once upon a time there was a mountain’ on the Bezirk label, at whose label showcase night this set was recorded. Blurring the lines between analogue and digital, human and machine, the pair draw on a range of noise sources whose balance is seemingly always in flux. At times a caustic barrage of sound, at others pin-drop intimate, the set spans a dizzying range from dense noise-wall to tentative acapella vocalisations. Over the course of nearly half an hour Oishi walk a landscape all their own. From the start we’re out into unknown terrain but Oishi seem to proceed with their ears wide open and alert, with no sense of a specific destination to aim for or markers to hit, the duo instead manage to stay fully in the moment in a way which is thrillingly, vitally alive. You can hear each incremental decision being made; a pathway being carved out in real-time. In heavier hands this might end up being overly cautious or methodical, but there is a lightness of touch here which combines a genuinely experimental, experiential approach with just the right amount of humour and surreality thrown in. No po-faces here, just a joyful sonic lustration. -- Recorded by Luciano Maggiore Mixed and mastered by Oli Barrett Cover painting by Ren Shang