ANDREW BRODER / GEORGE CARTWRIGHT
Broder / Cartwright
(Roaratorio - ROAR08) LP $12.00
Andrew Broder (aka Lex Records/Ninja Tune recording artist Fog) and George Cartwright (leader of the long-running avant/jazz group Curlew and Gloryland Ponycat Trio) lay claim to some barrier-crashing and genre-splicing within their respective bodies of work. Together on a Minneapolis stage in February 2004, they cross-pollinate like killer bees with their array of saxes, laptops, turntables, keyboards, and various effects. Broder and Cartwright’s free improv would work fine as a soundtrack for documentaries on paranormal phenomena, so start filming, auteur. Limited edition on red vinyl, with hand-silkscreened covers.s/t
New Nixon Tapes
(Roaratorio - ROAR16) LP $15.00
Since 2003, NYC's Talibam! have been charting a course through improv waters where rock, jazz, noise and all stops in between collide in an aggressive mix that defines free music in the best sense of the term: nothing is deemed out of bounds. Too much fun to be a po-faced postmodern exercise, and too expertly played to get sunk in a morass of good intentions, The New Nixon Tapes hurtles through two side-long pieces in an agile cascade of rhythmic and melodic ideas. Kevin Shea (drums) and Matt Mottel (synthesizer) have worked with Cooper-Moore and Rhys Chatham, among others; here they're joined by master saxophonist / trumpeter / flautist Daniel Carter. Recorded live in the WFMU studios. MP3 download coupon included.
Rag
(Roaratorio - ROAR19) LP $18.00
Recorded at various Minneapolis venues throughout 2009, Rag captures freely improvised meetings between saxophonist Cartwright (longtime leader of Curlew, associations with Ornette Coleman, Half Japanese, Alex Chilton and Loren Mazzacane) and percussionist Seru, whose playing is a trompe l’oreille marriage of forward motion and suspended stasis; witness his work with Milo Fine, Paul Metzger and Evan Parker, among others. Cartwright can be restlessly melodic or jaggedly guttural on the reeds, although his bedrock lyricism is never far from the surface. Edition of 300, each copy with unique print by Anne Elias on the jacket. Colored vinyl. Includes digital download coupon.
Gussie
(Roaratorio) LP $15.00
Recorded summer of 2001, released mere moments ago, this spectacularly well-recorded live document of free improv by veteran outists George Cartwright (saxophones), Davey Williams (guitar), Chris Parker (piano), Fred Chalenor (bass), and Bruce Golden (percussion) delivers a squawk most supreme. No over-the-top noise, no meandering wank, just fine jazzbo tweak. A limited edition of 436 copies, with hand-drawn covers signed and numbered by Anne Elias.
Disturbed Strings
(Roaratorio) LP $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
In the spring of 1998, guitarist Jeff Fuccillo (Irving Klaw Trio, Wham-O, Hochenkeit) met avant-folk guru John Fahey while opening for his trio at a gig in Portland, Oregon. Fahey booked studio time to record Fuccillo for his label. Fuccillo arrived at the session expecting to make a solo acoustic guitar album. To his surprise Fahey had prepared a pile of samples — random snatches of music, all manner of sound effects — and without warning began shooting them out into the studio through the monitors, effecting a guerilla collaboration of sorts. Disturbed Strings captures the highlight of that day: veering from hardscrabble string-rattling to modal melodicism, the album is ample testament to Fuccillo’s wide-ranging inventiveness as an improvising guitarist, as well as a window into an aspect of Fahey’s artistry not previously represented on record. An essential document of the New Weird America underground. Released in a limited edition of 500 copies, with artwork by Fahey and Judith Lindbloom.
Saucers In The Sky
(Roaratorio) CD $12.00
Rodney Keith Eskelin (aka Rodd Keith, Rod Rogers) would’ve certainly found the recognition during his lifetime that his talent demanded had he not chosen to work in the lowest depths of the music industry: the “send us your lyrics” field, known today as the song-poem genre. Saucers In The Sky gathers together twenty-six previously uncollected Keith gems from the hundreds upon hundreds of songs he recorded before he leapt from a highway overpass in 1974. Packaged in mini-LP gatefold sleeves with liner notes from Del Casher (inventor of the wah-wah pedal and guitarist on many of Rodd’s early recordings), and Stacey Keith (his daughter).
Knife World
(Roaratorio) LP $13.50
Formed in Minneapolis in 2004, Knife World have converted many unwary bystanders into true believers through their frenetic gigs, riff worship, and interchangeable pomposity and mischievous intelligence. Guitarist Jon Nielsen plays as if part of some skewed arena-rock mashup, while drummer Josh Journey-Heinz carves spaces around what would otherwise be obvious backbeats. Packaged in a pleasantly eye-gouging 3D gatefold jacket, with glasses mounted into the vinyl.
Antarctica
(Roaratorio - ROAR18) LP $17.00
With recordings stretching back over 20 years with the Portuguese avant trio Osso Exótico and collaborations with Z’ev and Minit, Maranha follows up Marches Of The New World (2007) with two side-long excursions into monolithic drone-rock in the vein of Tony Conrad & Faust, “Venus In Furs,” La Monte Young and Terry Riley. The ensemble is driven by keyboards, strings, and hypnotized-heartbeat percussion. Like the great white expanse of the titular continent, it can be taken in simply as a glorious wash of sound; listen to it closely, however, and you’ll hear the smallest details jump out in high relief: a feather can move a mountain. 300 copies, silkscreened covers, digital download coupon included.
Alto
(Roaratorio - ROAR17) LP $16.50
Alto completes a discrete trilogy within Joe McPhee’s catalog of unaccompanied waxings (Tenor, 1977, and Soprano, 2007). Recorded live at a Lower East Side bar in 2009, McPhee’s explorations on alto saxophone and clarinet are alternately fiery and contemplative, imbued with the masterful intelligence that’s marked his work for over forty years. This is a limited edition of 525 copies on 180-gram vinyl, with a Judith Lindbloom silkscreen print on rice paper and liner notes by Hank Shteamer. Digital download coupon included.
Soprano
(Roaratorio) LP $15.00 (Out-of-stock)
This document of McPhee’s first solo concert devoted exclusively to the straight horn is a companion to his critically lauded Everything Happens For A Reason LP, as well as an overdue follow-up to his classic album Tenor, which raised the bar for solo saxophone music over 30 years ago. Recorded live in St. George’s Church at the Guelph Jazz Festival in 1998, Soprano was inspired by Pauline Oliveros’s Deep Listening performance at the venue the previous year. The acoustics of the church provide a natural web of reverberation and delay. A thoughtful, passionate music from one of jazz’s most eloquent practitioners, pressed in a limited edition of 500 on 180-gram vinyl, with a Judith Lindbloom silkscreen print on rice paper and liner notes by McPhee and Oliveros.
Everything Happens for a Reason
(Roaratorio) LP $15.00 (Out-of-stock)
McPhee’s solo albums stand out as supreme ur-texts of his consummate improvising and compositional skills. Joining the ranks of such landmark records as Tenor, Graphics, and As Serious As Your Life, Everything Happens For A Reason features McPhee on pocket trumpet, soprano and alto saxophones, recorded live in Austria in November 2003. Limited edition of 500 copies on 180-gram vinyl, with a Judith Lindbloom silkscreen print on rice paper and liner notes by McPhee.
Gedanken Splitter
(Roaratorio - ROAR14) LP $12.00
Paul Metzger’s modified banjo is tricked out with additional sympathetic raga strings, although Gedanken Splitter is informed by more than Eastern drone music alone. Recorded in the same period as Deliverance (Locust Music 2007), this is more jagged and aggressive; Metzger winds improvisations around thornier threads than on his previous releases, and moves even further away from anything resembling typical banjo fare. Mesmerizing and singular.
Anamnestic Tincture
(Roaratorio - ROAR15) LP $17.25
The performances on this live album by virtuoso musical carpenter Paul Metzger were culled from many hours of concert recordings. Side one, the public debut of his modified banjo, was recorded in 2002 at a church-turned-underground art space in Minneapolis. One of his most memorable compositions, "After Milo," later turned up as an untitled improvisation on his CD for the Chairkickers label. Jumping ahead six years (and several more banjo alterations later) to side two, the glittering "Orans" gets a workout at a memorial show for the artist Matt Zaun. As an acknowledgment of the occasion, Metzger also gives a one-time-only performance -- "Dark Green Water" -- on another of his mutant instruments: an acoustic guitar with the body drilled out to accommodate a cymbal set into its face, and ten assorted strings of varying lengths laid over the top, giving it a particularly metallic and dissonant sound. Limited edition of 425 copies, with an original vintage snapshot mounted on each cover.
Music Ensemble
(Roaratorio) CD $10.50
The first documentation of influential mid-’70s free improv group featuring Daniel Carter, William Parker, Billy Bang, Malik Baraka, Roger Baird, and Herb Kahn bears the seeds of contemporary ecstatic jazz freeweights Other Dimensions in Music and Test. Arresting live recordings of immediate, post-ESP free hoot. Packaged in a mini-gatefold sleeve.
Minexcio Connection: Live at the Rosedale Cafe
(Roaratorio) LP $12.00
The results of one of the most unexpected yet fruitful partnerships in recent years, a live collaboration between electronic music pioneer and sage of the environmental-drone Pauline Oliveros and indefinable Argentinean experimenters Reynols. Recorded in August 2000 during Reynols’ first trek through North America, the record features a version of “Six For New Time” (originally composed for Sonic Youth’s Goodbye 20th Century album), along with idiosyncratic throat-singing and hypnotic dream/dronescapes.
Completed Rotations of...
(Roaratorio - ROAR20) LP $16.00 (Out-of-stock)
RELEASE DATE SEPTEMBER 21st. The city of Tauranga doesn’t have as celebrated a history as other centers of New Zealand music such as Otago or Port Chalmers or Whangerei. It is home to Rotate The Completor, however, whose music is disconnected from all known scenes in Aotearoa or elsewhere. Stumbling upon the one-man band busking on the streets, an enthusiastic passerby nabbed a home-recorded cassette and here we are. All attempts at personal correspondence with its creator to date have been ignored, so forget about Songs In The Key of Z, Vol. 2, outsider aficionado. Rotate The Completor gets to his otherworldly inner-world using guitar, kick-drum, and vocals that might pass for early Residents; the songs are a strangely addictive brew of lo-fi bedroom pop, proggy loner folk, bouncy children’s music, and a one-man band at a carnival that’s gone off the rails. Lyrics concern beer-stealing cantaloupes, dead albino hedgehogs, and emphatic denials of insanity. Includes free download card.
CAREI THOMAS FEEL FREE ENSEMBLE
Mining Our Bid’ness
(Roaratorio) CD $10.50
Free-wheeling, harmonically complex debut album by 64-year-old pianist/composer who gigged with Sun Ra in 1959-60, did brief time in AACM during the mid-’60s, and co-founded The Light with Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre (which also included Jerome Cooper and Wadada Leo Smith). This live recording swings both ways and ignores the boundaries between gorgeous Ellingtonian ballads and combustible free jazz testification. Features Curlew’s George Cartwright and tenor saxophonist William R. Lang. Packaged in a mini-gatefold sleeve.