Uneven Eleven (Segers / Hawyard / Kawabata):
Live In Brighton (Discus)
A ferocious meeting of three seasoned innovators, this live set from Charles Hayward (drums, vocals), Guy Segers (bass), and Kawabata Makoto (guitar) channels decades of rock, punk, psychedelia, and free improvisation into an explosive power trio performance, where raw energy, shifting polyrhythms, and searing intensity collide in a fiercely immediate and unfiltered sonic assault captured on stage in Brighton in 2013. ... Click to View
Don Malfon / Vasco Trilla:
Towers of Silence (Confront)
A deeply immersive duo performance from saxophonist Don Malfon and percussionist Vasco Trilla, this exploratory session unfolds as a richly textured dialogue of breath, resonance, and rhythm, where haunting tones, shifting densities, and subtle dynamics blur the lines between experimental jazz, ambient improvisation, and abstract sound sculpture, revealing a finely balanced interplay of intensity and restraint. ... Click to View
Tom Jackson / Daniel Thompson:
Dark Kitchen (Confront)
An intimate, immersive duo recording in which Tom Jackson's finely articulated clarinet and Daniel Thompson's responsive, highly attuned guitar create a richly expressive terrain of spontaneous sound, channeling the spirit of free improvisation's pioneers in a deeply communicative exchange of timbre, space, and dynamic nuance. ... Click to View
Jurg Frey :
Composer, Alone [3 CDs] (elsewhere)
Recording at the historic Muziekcentrum van de Omroep in Hilversum, Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt performs twelve solo piano works spanning more than three decades of Swiss composer Jürg Frey's output, revealing an evolving yet remarkably consistent compositional voice through performances of great restraint, sensitivity, and quiet intensity, balancing fragility, warmth, and crystalline clarity. ... Click to View
Eliane Radigue:
Asymptote Versatile (1963-64) (Amgen Records)
An historic world-premiere recording of Éliane Radigue's earliest surviving work, performed at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, where a stellar ensemble realizes her flexible "sonic proposition" through evolving textures, mathematical spirals and dynamic transformations that foreshadow her later visionary soundworld. ... Click to View
Ilia Belorukov / Alex Riva:
Wrestling For Futility [CASSETTE w/DOWNLOAD] (Notice Recordings)
A bristling electro-acoustic duo encounter in which Ilia Belorukov's restless modular synthesis collides and intertwines with Alex Riva's recorder work and effects, generating playful yet volatile improvisations that shift between lo-fi textures, glassy winds, and surging electronic fragments, as tension, friction, and timbral curiosity drive the music through constantly mutating sonic terrain. ... Click to View
Various Artists:
Evil Clown Shorties Vol 6 (2025) (Evil Clown)
A lively sampler of Evil Clown's expansive improvisational universe, this collection assembles fourteen concise, high-energy performances drawn from livestream sessions across multiple ensembles, where shifting instrumental combinations, dense textures, and spontaneous interaction distil the label's long-form aesthetic into sharply focused bursts of collective invention. ... Click to View
Axioms:
Fundamental Statements (Evil Clown)
A tightly focused and interactive trio session pairing spoken word with expansive instrumental color,bringing Jane's incisive poetry into close dialogue with Albey onBass's grounded sonorities and David Peck's wide-ranging reeds, electronics, and resonant objects, revealing an articulated improvisational language where text, texture, and collective intuition lock together. ... Click to View
Simulacrum:
Replicants (Evil Clown)
A densely layered electro-acoustic ensemble improvisation in which expanded electronics, tightly integrated horns, and richly colored percussion generate a constantly evolving sonic field, balancing muscular collective energy with intricate textural detail as shifting instrumental roles and deep ensemble cohesion drive a forward-moving exploration of sound and form. ... Click to View
Jakob Ullmann:
Solo I / Solo IV (Another Timbre)
Jakob Ullmann's Solo I and Solo IV are realised together as two ultra-quiet, long-form works in which graphic notation, fixed pitch sequences, and subtle performance choices guide quarter-tone flute and double bass through slowly shifting regions of colour and resonance, blending live sound with tailored playback to create a fragile, immersive acoustic environment. ... Click to View
Eldritch Priest :
Dead-Wall Reveries (Another Timbre)
Three chamber works from Canadian composer Eldritch Priest trace his distinctive blend of lyric drifting and restless detail, from a fragile, noise-tinged string quartet to a reflective solo piano piece and a shifting, daydream-like ensemble work, each drawing on his interest in improvisation, ambiguity, and melodies that wander with deliberate aimlessness. ... Click to View
Marja Ahti:
Visiting Cloud (Two Translations) (Another Timbre)
Acoustic ensemble realizations of two electroacoustic works by Marja Ahti, in which members of the Italian ensemble Blutwurst translate her drifting textures, elemental timbres, and spatial sensibilities into slow, finely detailed instrumental environments, expanding the original works into patient, resonant soundworlds shaped by pitch nuance, breath, and sustained collective focus. ... Click to View
Melaine Dalibert / David Sylvian:
Vermilion Hours (Ici d Ailleurs)
A refined collaboration between pianist Melaine Dalibert and David Sylvian, transforming Dalibert's algorithmic piano works through subtle, impressionistic electronic treatments that deepen their harmonic resonance, creating a luminous and contemplative soundworld shaped by spectral motion and quiet atmospheric detail. ... Click to View
Eric La Casa / Jerome Noetinger:
Off Tracks (erstwhile)
Compositions from Éric La Casa and Jérôme Noetinger built from site recordings made while exploring buildings emptied of their activities, crossing spaces abandoned by their occupants and drifting through the ghostly traces of vanished presence, revealing a mysterious electroacoustic force that lingers within the shifting textures of these emptied environments. ... Click to View
Fredrik Rasten w/ Asterales:
Fuse Modulations (thanatosis produktion)
Guitarist-composer Fredrik Rasten joins the Berlin quartet Asterales to explore slowly shifting just-intonation harmonies in four movements where quarter-tone bass flute, synthesizer, double bass, and fretless electric guitar weave sustained microtonal textures into a resonant, deeply attentive study of modulation, timbre, and collective harmonic precision. ... Click to View
Kory Reeder:
In Place (thanatosis produktion)
Three works from American composer Kory Reeder's Grid Series bring piano and two violas into sparse, quietly shifting environments where structured pitch fields, performer agency, and subtle repetition form reflective sound spaces that balance structure and spontaneity, inviting deep listening through poised restraint and the poetic tension between silence and tone. ... Click to View
Laura Cetilia:
Gorgeous Nothings (elsewhere)
Three intimate chamber works from composer-cellist Laura Cetilia unfold in finely sculpted layers of cello, voice, violin, and vibraphone, blending delicate harmonics, quiet resonance, and attentive presence into a spacious, quietly immersive soundworld that bridges classical lineage with exploratory clarity and luminous restraint. ... Click to View
Shoko Numao:
The Siwnin Sails (elsewhere)
A debut solo album of eight songs for voice and guitar from Japanese singer-songwriter Shoko Numao, blending poetic introspection, translucent vocal timbres, and quietly expressive melodies shaped through years of performance, as she crafts intimate, subtly shifting pieces that balance lyrical clarity with a gentle, atmospheric sense of stillness. ... Click to View
John Zorn:
The Song of Songs [CD + CD BOOK] (Tzadik)
A rich all-vocal rendering of the Bible's sensual Song of Solomon, featuring five distinguished female voices with narration by Barbara Hannigan and Mathieu Amalric, and guided by Jeremy Fogel's new translation, this lush limited-edition CD book highlights one of Zorn's most evocative and beautifully realized creations in a single extended work. ... Click to View
John Zorn (Marsella / Smith / Roeder):
Nocturnes (Tzadik)
Exploring the tradition of night music with subtle, dreamlike elegance, Zorn's latest piano-trio work — the fourth in his series with Brian Marsella, Jorge Roeder, and Ches Smith after Suite for Piano, Ballades, and Impromptus — unfolds as a lyrical and expressive creation performed with seemingly telepathic, virtuosic, and finely nuanced interplay. ... Click to View
Amir ElSaffar / New Quartet:
Live at Pierre Boulez Saal (Maqam Records)
Blending Arabic maqam with jazz-inflected improvisation, ElSaffar's new quartet — joined by Tania Giannouli, Ole Mathisen, and Tomas Fujiwara — delivers an intense and expressive live performance whose spontaneous, newly composed material unfolds with lyrical depth, microtonal color, and dynamic interplay, captured at Berlin's Pierre Boulez Saal with additional alternate takes. ... Click to View
Amir ElSaffar / New Quartet :
Live at Pierre Boulez Saal [VINYL] (Maqam Records)
Blending Arabic maqam with jazz-inflected improvisation, ElSaffar's new quartet — joined by Tania Giannouli, Ole Mathisen, and Tomas Fujiwara — delivers an intense and expressive live performance whose spontaneous, newly composed material unfolds with lyrical depth, microtonal color, and dynamic interplay, captured at Berlin's Pierre Boulez Saal with additional alternate takes. ... Click to View
Ziv Taubenfeld Full Sun (Taubenfeld / Moore / Buis / Ku / Chientaroli / Heggen / Govaert):
Nomads (Full Sun Records)
Recorded live at the Bimhuis, Ziv Taubenfeld's Full Sun gathers Michael Moore, Joost Buis, Yung-Tuan Ku, Nico Chientaroli, Rozemarie Heggen, and Onno Govaert for a slow-unfolding suite steeped in polyphonic colors, lyrical interplay, and spirited homage to Jimmy Lyons, Duke Ellington, Sun Ra, and Misha Mengelberg, shaping a warm, exploratory, and deeply communal sonic journey. ... Click to View
Sophie Agnel:
Learning [VINYL] (Otoroku)
Recorded in two powerful live sets at Café OTO, Sophie Agnel's first solo LP channels her post-recovery reinvention into a fiercely physical language for prepared piano, unleashing dense sound masses, interior textures, and sudden moments of clarity as she reshapes the instrument into a raw, personal terrain of gesture, resonance, and fearless exploration. ... Click to View
Amanda Monaco (w/ Michael Attias / Sean Conly / Satoshi Takeishi) :
Deathblow [VINYL+ DOWNLOAD] (Genevieve Records)
Long delayed but bursting with life, guitarist Amanda Monaco's freebopping quartet — Michael Attias, Sean Conly, and Satoshi Takeishi — delivers a sharp, melodic, and mischievously adventurous set, blending playful grooves, quick-turn interplay, and Monaco's distinctive compositional voice into a vibrant, high-spirited vinyl debut from her Deathblow project. ... Click to View
Jurg Frey with ensemble]h[iatus:
Je Laisse A La Nuit Son Poids D'ombre (Another Timbre)
A brooding work for ten musicians, Jürg Frey's crepuscular score intertwines Japanese haiku and poems by Anne Perrier through hushed voices, fragile instrumental colors, and suspended textures, inviting ensemble]h[iatus, led by Le Quan Ninh and Martine Altenburger, into a slowly unfolding landscape where uncertainty, breath, and quiet tension shape a haunting world on the edge of darkness. ... Click to View
Santiago Fischer Diez :
Songs (Another Timbre)
Blending acoustic trio writing, subtle electronics, and everyday vocal gestures, Argentine composer Santiago Diez Fischer's decade-spanning set of five works for Gyre Ensemble shapes a raw, sculptural, and "punk-poetic" sound world where baritone sax, accordion, and percussion merge with the composer's vocal and electronic interventions to reveal music poised deliberately between rough material and refined form. ... Click to View
Rempis / Adasiewicz / Corsano:
Dial Up (Aerophonic)
Two fiercely intuitive trio sessions drawn from concerts in Chicago and Milwaukee by Dave Rempis, Jason Adasiewicz, and Chris Corsano, capturing the group's Chicago-forged, ego-free interplay as they shift effortlessly between surging, full-throttle improvisation and finely detailed, pointillistic exploration, always prioritizing collective motion over individual display.
... Click to View
Yong Yandsen:
Mud (Armageddon Nova)
Harnessing extreme tenor-sax techniques, Yong Yandsen - known for his collaborations with Christian Meaas Svendsen, Paal Nilssen-Love, Rick Countryman, Sabu Toyozumi, &c. - delivers a solo album that immerses listeners in wet, murky textures and grainy, pressure-driven timbres, shaping breath, multiphonics, and noise into an uncompromising sound world that deepens his distinctive improvisational voice. ... Click to View
Naoko Saito:
The Moon In Diffuse Reflection (Armageddon Nova)
Japanese alto-saxophonist Naoko Saito living in Tokyo presents a full solo effort, shaping airy subtones, soft breath, and tentative melodic fragments into a ghostly, introspective soundscape - a contemplative and quietly expressive improvisational voice that marks her emergence as a distinctive new presence on the Deathrash Armageddon roster. ... Click to View
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The Squid's Ear is the companion magazine to the online music shop Squidco ! |