A total of 7 'vocal' pieces for soprano saxophone and piano, some written by Jan Rzewski and some by Steve Lacy. Frederic Rzewski and Steve Lacy met in Rome in the late 60’s when both were participating in Musica Elettronica Viva. Lacy dedicated his “Cryptosphere” to Rzewski - a tune full of a kind of micro playing that would dominate Lacy's playing after his time in Rome. Lacy and Rzewski shared a fascination with poetry and language, and here Rzewski and his son Jan recall moments from two records Rzewski and Lacy made together - "Rushes" based on Russian poems, and "Packet" based on poems written by Judith Melina of the Living Theatre. --- Frederick Rzewski / piano Jan Rzewski / soprano saxophone --- Frederic Rzewski in conversation with Evan Parker: "Steve Lacy. Well, the important thing about him was that he was a great composer. People think of him as a jazz musician, an improviser, which he was, but he was also a great composer. He wrote probably two hundred songs which nobody knows and he wrote pieces for all kinds of compositions for orchestra and so on. He wasn't just what it's fashionable to talk about, he happened to be a great artist and a great writer. He wrote tone clusters with dozens of notes. They looked like grape bunches - clusters of grapes! So, I was, you know, like any pianist - I would fake them. I would fake them, of course. What you don't learn in the conservatory but what I think any professional pianist knows is that you have to fake if you're going to play music of today, to play Steve Lacy. So I did that, but then in the rehearsal Steve would stop and he would say, "well wait a minute, that's not exactly right." Of course it wasn't right - he knew what he wrote you know. He was a serious composer and he wrote it down and he knew what he wanted to hear. And so I would have to really practice at it." Cover photo by Fabio Lugaro.

OTO wishes you all a great time over the festive period. To celebrate People Like Us have treated us to this special Holiday Mix. Available for free download. Enjoy! Tracklisting: Matthijs Vlot - HelloLionel Richie on HeliumPeople Like Us and Wobbly - HelloThe Evolution Control Committee - HelloAnimals Within Animals - HelloAE - Tape Cuts HelloKen Nordine - HelloThe Evolution Control Committee - HelloCurd Duca - Cassettedʳᶤᵖ⁻₁₃₃ - ·•● ｆｌｅｘButtress O’Kneel - The Britney Spears RecordsButtress O’Kneel - RhapsodyWΔll Flowers - Subliminal RomanceNew Dreams Ltd Initiation Tape - PSR41Limahl - The NeverEnding Story (Indecorum Vaporized)Buttress O’Kneel - NeverendingButtress O’Kneel - Rhapsodybd594 - Bohemian RhapsodyButtress O’Kneel - Martian RhapsodyLes Baxter - Lunar RhapsodyThe Evolution Control Committee - Spandau FiletErgo Phizmiz - Welcome AudioOtomo Yoshihide - TEACGwilly Edmondez - Break Up The PieceRoy Smeck - Waltz Of YesteryearBBC Radiophonic Workshop - Christmas CommercialAelters - Pal-Xmas Cheap GiftDJ BC - Jesu Joy Of Man's DesiringSvein Tuba Johannessen - Oh. What A MealStimmhorn - SchneeGeorge Winston - Skating (Remastered 1996)Unknown - ChariotsAdam Bohman - At HomeVoicedude - Santa Benz Rank Sinatra - Last ChristmasGoulburn Poultry Fanciers Society - Last ChristmasAdam Bohman - At HomeVince Guaraldi - SkatingAntzz - CrimboThe Kleptones - A Night At The Hip Hopera (excerpt)Blood Brothers - Under PressurePeople Like Us & Gwilly Edmondez & Hearty White & Caterina Robertson - BoxesPeople Like Us - ForeverL'Atome - The Air Beneath My MaskLuiz Henrique - Mas Que NadaDirt Bike Boy - Dolce Vita Felicity Glitch MixMatmos - SchwittUrsGwilly Edmondez - Grevious Bodily CharmChristo Graham - Muppet Christ Superstar

A rare solo set from composer, percussionist and sound artist Susie Ibarra. Using the full breadth of a unique set up, Ibarra takes a meditative journey across her kit, taking time to find familiar rhythms and knots and allowing them to offer up new space and sound. Delicate, dynamic and extremely focused, Ibarra finds expressive harmonics in gongs and brushes alike, with refreshingly melodic, even pastoral, results. "Rhythm Cycles is a drum solo that I consider as a performance meditation. I love to perform this piece as it is possible to always arrive at new places while returning to familiar cycles that make so much sense to me. This piece is constructed to weave through certain tempos and hit points during a solo performance that arrive at melodies and textures and phrases grounded in specific rhythms and polyrhythms. The piece cycles through each of these sections and allows me to improvise through a flexible structure, sometimes returning to a section at moments and other times moving forward to create a new rhythmic environment.” - Susie Ibarra. --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Thursday 7th November 2019 by Shaun Crook. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn. “Rhythm Cycles” by Susie Ibarra is a commissioned solo performance by the Bagri Foundation for their series " At the Cutting Edge" performed at Cafe OTO. Many thanks to the Bagri Foundation for the support of this release. About Bagri Foundation The Bagri Foundation is a UK registered charity, inspired by unique and unexpected ideas that weave the traditional and the contemporary of Asian culture. The Foundation, with its roots in education, is driven by curiosity and a desire to learn, and aims for each project to challenge, engage and inspire. Through a diverse programme of film, visual arts, music, dance, literature and talks, the Bagri Foundation gives artists and experts from across Asia and the diaspora, wider visibility on the global stage. Recent projects include At Home in the World, a series of digital commissions; Tantra: enlightenment to revolution at the British Museum; Object, Story, Wonder: Museum Collections Revealed; and From Here to Eternity: Sunil Gupta, A Retrospective at The Photographer’s Gallery, London. www.bagrifoundation.org

Proud to present a full recording of the inaugural confluence of THAT, a new trio featuring Pat Thomas, Gwilly Edmondez and Otto Willberg, together handling responsibility of making some respectable music. Captured in one extended rush, this release captures the moment when various orbits finally collide head on, resulting in heady combustion or wet patter. At certain points sounding like a performance arguing with itself, at others sounding like nothing so much as Looney Tunes performing the collected works of Chopin simultaneously in the Garden of Earthly Delights, this is a recording at once beautifully unhinged, wide-ranging and deep. A true one of a kind. -- Recorded by Shaun Crook Mixed by James Dunn Mastered by Oli Barrett Cover art by Gustav Thomas

Kuljit Bhamra, Evelyn Glennie and Charles Hayward improvise together for the first time as part of Trestle Records ongoing One Day Band series and to mark the release of One Day Band compilation volume 1 on vinyl and download. A masterclass in percussive improvisation from three exceptional musicians from three very different fields of practice. The One Day Band sessions are an ongoing programme of recorded improvisations hosted by Trestle Records. This will be the first time that the session has left the studio to be recorded live in front of an audience. The idea is to facilitate an environment for musicians to meet and collaborate with one another on a record made in a day. Often the musicians are meeting for the first time in the studio itself whilst other times we ask an artist to curate the participants. This often results with people inviting musicians or friends they have wanted to work with but haven't yet had the opportunity / reason.These recordings are owned equally by the artists who make them. We provide the studio, engineer, mix and master the session for it then to exist on www.trestlerec.com to be heard for free. This is purely an environment for experimentation and improvisation with the results available to whoever may be interested. -- Kuljit Bhamra - tabla Evelyn Glennie - percussion Charles Hayward - percussion -- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on the 24th of August 2019 by Shaun Crook

Delighted to present a release featuring three live performances from the Late Works: Preparations event that took place at Cafe OTO on 20th September 2021. For the event, 23 artists were asked to create a ‘preparation’ each for the grand piano (shown on album cover). Three pianists then had to construct an individual live performance with the adaptable unit of preparations. Featuring GLARC regulars Finlay Clark (Still House Plants) & Max Syedtollan (Horse Whisperer) & Slow Dance signee Aga Ujma, the playful live album shifts from dynamic refrain-based contemporary classical sensibilities (Clark) to flowing melodies and improvisations full of pop influences (Ujma) to theatrical avant-garde baroque-tinged experiments (Syedtollan), together showing off the range of musical possibilities with a prepared piano. Finlay Clark: For the preparation of the piano, Finlay placed the majority of the preparations close to the hammers in the central space of the piano, so that they could easily reach into the belly to shuffle the sculptures around whilst still playing with the other hand. Isobel Neviazsky’s “Figure”, Daisy Harvey’s “Clover” & Jack Bidewell’s “middlegame” were three of the preparations sat in the centre of the piano, creating a harpsichordal sound. Finlay often shuffles these around during the performance, as well as Mathilda Bennett-Greene’s “Hounds of Love Tastes like Gum”, a metal Smint case with metal prongs and lychees stuck on and a secret model figure shut inside. Early on in the piece, Finlay picks up Ralph Parks “The Duke and I” (inbetween picking up Louis Eager’s “Piano Keys”) to pluck the treble strings whilst simultaneously playing a refrain on them. In the middle of the performance, Clark reaches deep into the piano to shift Tawfik Naas’ “Seed” from where it was sat in one of the piano’s iron cavities, leaving it to teeter on the strings. A few of the larger sculptures sat much closer to Finlay throughout the performance (Tom Sewell’s 5000-year-old bog wood “Peg”, Angus McCrum’s “Höhepunktinstrument” & Laila Majid’s “Vertebra 2”), and near the crescendoing finale of the piece they are all used to interact with the strings closest to the pins. Aga Ujma: For the performance, Aga didn’t touch the preparations once they were in place, and opted to shuffle them around by hitting the keys at various strengths. The bottom section of the piano was set up to have snare-like qualities by combining Tawfik Naas’ “Seed” and Katharina Fitz’s “Rendezvous” together. The middle section - like Finlay’s - had many sculptures inside to rattle on the strings. One of the most effective preparations in Aga’s performance is Siyi Li’s “Untitled” stickers which were used to weave and attach a £10 note to the strings. The result is a set of peculiar vibrations that extend the sound. If you have ever tried to use the new pound notes to play an LP on your record player you will have heard a similar sound. Ujma frequently uses Joseph Bradley Hill’s “Knucklebone”, a red Tupperware from the Cafe OTO kitchen with two black dice inside, to contribute to the snare noise, though midway through the performance it gets bounced up and wedged sideways between the strings - when you hear Aga slamming the lower octaves of the piano she is trying to dislodge the Tupperware from its string! Daisy Harvey’s “Clover” almost came flying out of the piano at this point. From here until the end, Aga uses her voice as a preparation, rejecting the use of a vocal mic to allow her voice to merge with the sound of the piano.

For his first solo show in the UK, Vainio side-steps the direct intensity that Pan Sonic are so well known for and instead subtly plays with the potential of the room's PA. Carefully modulated frequencies create a surprisingly warm and seductive narrative that is openly personal but yet less brooding than much of his other work. Download as a FLAC and rejoice in its technical composition. --- Recorded by James Dunn at Cafe OTO on Friday 11 January 2013. Mixed by James Dunn. Mastered by James Dunn. Photograph by Fabio Lugaro.

"At each concert that I have ever given (quite a few) at Cafe Oto I have tried to do something different or at least with a different line up. This concert in 2017 I was lucky enough to be able to call on two long time collaborators in Pat Thomas and Tim Hill, one that I have never played with before, Orphy Robinson and Michael Thieke with whom I have collaborated with both in Rome and Berlin on a few occasions in recent years. This concert was another version of my Spirit Songs collection of text made by cutting up Thomas Pynchon’s two novels, Gravity’s Rainbow and V, and singing them over a freely improvised score. There are a few versions, obviously all different and it was a great pleasure for me to have this group to help me help indulge in yet another version. Thank you and thanks to Cafe Oto for being. The text/poem ‘Rum’ is by the great poet trumpet player Shake Keane and is from an edition of his collected poetry work titled published by The House Of Nehesi, that I picked up in St.Lucia. I particularly liked this poem because it reminded me of The Caribbean Club in Reading where I learned to love many things including the sound of dominos being played on sunday in the back bar by the elders. William Burroughs said something like ‘Cut into the present and the future will appear.’ The future will be improvised and the subtext will be cut up, re-arranged and tweeted I am sure." - Mike Cooper --- Mike Cooper - lap steel guitar / electronics / vocals and all song text apart from Lord Franklin (traditional)Pat Thomas - keyboards / electronicsOrphy Robinson - midi vibraphone / electronicsTim Hill / baritone and alto saxophones / electronicsMichael Thieke / clarinet --- Recorded by Tom Mudd at Cafe OTO on 29.9.17 Mixed and mastered by Oliver Barrett

A total trip from long-time collaborators, Australian drummer / percussionist, Will Guthrie, and Parisian artist, Jean-Luc Guionnet! Across 31 restless minutes Guionnet cranks the uneasiness with electronics that swell and stutter, whilst Guthrie's drums deftly probe and pierce, making tentative forays into the swirling tones and static before both ramp up the propulsive energy in a dizzying, cathartic barrage from which Guionnet's saxophone erupts. A second, shorter coda set brings back the introspection, letting the pieces fall and settle in a series of stop-start divinations before eventually drawing things to a close, though with no easy resolution. -- Will Guthrie / drums & percussionJean-Luc Guionnet / organ & saxophone -- Mixed and mastered by James Dunn Cover design by Oli Barrett Echiums grown by Mary Woodfield

Thrilled to release a rare live recording from New York-based, Japanese artist, writer, theorist, and composer, Yasunao Tone. An original member of the Fluxus movement and Group Ongaku, and a pioneer since the early 60s in sound art and digital composition, Yasunao Tone, has worked with John Cage, Merce Cunnigham, Yoko Ono, Robert Ashley, and Florian Hecker to name just a few. Invited to perform at Cafe OTO by Russell Haswell as part of his three-day residency here in November 2015, Tone gave a sublime performance, presenting two versions of a piece, mixing abrasive and meditative qualities to transcendent effect. The two parts of the performance act as disorientating reflection of the other; overlapping and reprising in places but allowing subtle shifts in tonality and dynamics to shift the emphases and take the listener to whole new places entirely. Overwhelming, coruscating, transportive, soothing, and enlightening - at times all at once - this is an essential document from a true visionary. --- Recorded by Shaun Crook Mixed and mastered by Oli Barrett Cover design by Oli Barrett Thanks to Russell Haswell

Twenty-two minutes of brain-frying, coruscating fuzz and feedback immersions with Sightings guitarist, Mark Morgan. Cranking the amp with enough distortion to sink an oil tanker, Morgan layers over a miasma of voices both demonic and angelic as if summoned up by the straining, sinuous guitar strings themselves. “While pretty much every noise musician uses the guitar as a weapon of mass destruction, Mark Morgan of scuzz-worshippers Sightings uses his guitar for sheer negation. Playing in 50 shades of gray on found and borrowed pedals, the leader of this longtime Brooklyn noise band is quicker to sound like a vacuum humming, toilet flushing, or scrambled cable porn feed than Eric Clapton or even Thurston Moore; a unique sound that has all the emotion of punk, with none of its recognizable sounds. As he told the blog Thee Outernet: “Probably the biggest influences on my playing style is sheer f—king laziness and to a slightly lesser degree, a certain level of retardation in grasping basic guitar technique.” – Spin -- Recorded by Shaun Crook Mixed and mastered by James Dunn Cover by Oli Barrett

Thrilled to release this recording of a pairing which is truly one of a kind. Recorded at a Kammer Klang event at OTO in December 2017, the duo of Swedish singer and composer Sofia Jernberg and Danish saxophonist Mette Rasmussen give a performance of astonishing breadth and variety, which at times seems scarcely believable that it could have come from just two sets of lungs. Running the gamut from full throated euphoria to skittering, stuttering, delicate textures, the interplay between Rasmussen and Jernberg never settles for a moment; swooping and circling and briefly coalescing in long, ragged exhalations which blur the lines between saxophone and voice, before spinning off in different directions again. Clocking in at just over 23 minutes, the pair nevertheless leave nothing on the table, crafting the kind of intuitive, improvised reciprocity that seems as if it must have been honed over several years. Don't hesitate! -- Mette Rasmussen / saxophone Sofia Jernberg / voice -- Mastered by Oliver Barrett Cover photo by Dimitri Djuric

In December 2017, with support from the Japan Foundation, we were incredibly lucky to be able to host a rare UK performance from the pioneering experimental poet, Gozo Yoshimasu, alongside the hypnotic and genre-defying Japanese three-piece, Kukangendai. Considered one of the most representative figures of Japanese modern literature, Gozo Yoshimasu has cultivated a unique style of recitation in live performance, using rhythm and vocal modulation to the extent that one might consider it a form of incantation. His voice, at times gentle, at times feverish, lends itself to a fascinating meeting with music; in this case, a perfect pairing with Kukangendai’s mesmeric, polyrhythmic approach. Unfolding over 45 restless minutes, the group build a twitching, juddering foundation for Yoshimasu’s spasmodic, almost imploring vocalisations. Never settling, Kukangendai tantalisingly offer up a constantly evolving series of locked grooves, briefly hinting at resolution before switching up the emphasis and leaving the listener in a constant state of exhilarating uncertainty, akin to the disorientating sensation of stumbling up an unexpected step on a staircase. Truly unique and unmissable. -- Recorded and mixed by James Dunn Mastered by Oli Barrett Cover design by Oli Barrett

Bumper download release featuring two solo sets plus a very special duo performance from Glasgow based musician and sound artist, Kay Logan - aka Helena Celle - and Leeds underground legend Neil Campbell! Set one sees Helena Celle weave an enveloping atmospheric surround by turns uneasy and transcendent. Over an ebbing and flowing industrial swell, Celle draws up shapes from the depths which briefly coalesce before dissipating back into the gloam. In set two, Neil Campbell blurs the boundaires between electronic and acoustic sound sources, constructing a blanket of tuned percussion, modulating tones and skittering and shimmering synth patterns, before introducing clusters of piano notes made all the more beautiful for their unexpectedness. Finally, the closing set sees the pair combine, with Campbell building a dizzying miasma of hiss and hum, punctured through by Celle with scattered bursts of voice and radio fragments which refuse to settle. Hard-panned left and right, the set unfurls like an eavesdropped conversation infused with a disorientating dream logic. Please note that the FLAC version of this release is fairly large (1.1GB) -- Recorded at Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook Mixed and mastered by Oliver Barrett Cover photo by Robert Sookhan

Release 100 (!!!), and we're really pleased to make Jamal Moss' non-stop 6 hour New Year DJ set available for free. Half the night came out as a double cassette dubbed "The Hieroglyphic Being Experience Vol. 1" last year, but they're all sold out now and they dont seem to include the magic moment Jamal drops "I Feel Love" and re-works it in his unique acid house style. Thanks for your continued support of Cafe OTO, and hpe to see you New Year 2018! --- Jamal Moss / 4 cdjs --- Tracklisting: Part 1 - 2:02:15 Part 2 - 4:08:39 --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Thursday 31st December, 2015 by Shaun Crook. Mixed by Abby Thomas. Artwork by Oli Barratt. Many thanks to Jamal Moss.

Verbatum notes for the concert as written by John Tilbury: John Tilbury - solo piano. ( Pavana. The Earle of Salisbury - William Byrde (1543-1623) . Fantazia of foure parts - Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) followed by Coptic play-along Improvisation based on/accompanied by Morton Feldman's Coptic Light (1985) A Wordless Encounter "Last Friday my wife and I were on our way home by train from a wedding in Norwich. It was around 8pm. I had left my seat and had made my way to the exit doors. A young man was standing by the door. He must have been in his thirties. He was shortish, bulky, with a shaven head, and was wearing shorts and flip-flops. He was of fair complexion. My wife remarked later that he looked foreign, Nordic. He might have been a Baltic weight-lifter. I was facing the doors, he was standing between the two sets of doors. All of a sudden, I felt a presence at my right shoulder. It was a head whose teeth were biting through my suit and tee-shirt. I could feel the teeth though my assailant had not managed to penetrate the bare skin. Within around, I suppose, ten seconds I was able to shake him off. We stood facing each other; he bared his teeth, rather like an animal. I raised my hands in a calming movement and mouthed the words: it's ok, calm down, or words to that effect. At that moment a few people, including my wife, had left their seats, preparing to alight. I do not know if they had witnessed any part of what happened. My wife, seeing my arms raised in apology, thought I may have stumbled against him. The biter then bared his teeth to her and she, thinking he was smiling at her, smiled back. He repeated this. Then, facing the door opposite the exit doors he began to gyrate, or dance. My wife urged me to 'go through' and we moved purposefully, though unhurriedly, into the next carriage. We alighted at Folkestone West station and made our way briskly down into the subway and up to the exit leading to the bus replacement service. The biter had disappeared. On the bus I reflected on my response to the 'attack'. Bizarrely, although I had 'acted' to free myself from his teeth, there was no 'response' to the the 'attack', except a feeling of sheer disbelief. As if what happened must have been a 'fiction'. Would there be a 'reaction'? A nightmare? No. Nothing. I have recounted the incident to a few friends. My wife suggested I should describe what happened in writing. N.B This incident is entirely unconnected with this evening's concert." --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook on 31st August, 2016. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn. Photo by Dawid Laskowski. With thanks to Seymour Wright.

Moment is a Kurdish experimental, free improvisation Duo by Khabat Abas and Hardi Kurda. The duo focuses on a moment where sounds emerge through interacting, reflecting, reacting and interrupting each other. Hardi and Khabat want to share their experience of sound making with audience, to experience a world of sounds and noises from East to West. Across three sets recorded at an event celebrating the launch of their recent record 'Broken Resonance' at Cafe OTO in September 2021, Khabat Abas and Hardi Kurda blur the boundaries between acoustic and electronic sounds in a deeply intuitive interplay by turns restless and reflective. Set 3 introduces chance elements into the mix, inviting audience members to trigger components of Kurda's interactive radio antennas setup, which the duo then react to in turn, creating an evolving soundworld seemingly untethered to any one particular source. -- Recorded by Paul Skinner at Cafe OTO on 19.9.21 Mixed and mastered by Oliver Barrett Cover photo by Rolf Killius

Chugging, dark, spacey blues - Akiyama's solo guitar is focused "on the tone and wildness of the instrument." A hard rock fan at 11 years-old, Akiyama started playing electric guitar at the age of 13. Later, with a growing interest in free improvisation and classical music, Akiyama sought to create his own genre "solo rock guitar." A treat to have him play in the early days of OTO, and even better to dust this one out the archives, re-mix and master. --- Tetuzi Akiyama / electric guitar --- Recorded by John Chantler on the 17th October 2010. Mixed by John Chantler. Mastered by Toshimaru Nakamura. With thanks to Lee Etherington. --- Tracklisting: 1. 17.10.10 - 31:40 2. 18.10.10 - 12:39