Books and Magazines


Though his years in the New York free-jazz scene of the sixties cemented his reputation as “one of the most forceful and convincing composers and soloists in his field,” saxophonist Sonny Simmons (1933–2021) was nearly forgotten by the eighties, which found him broke, heavily dependent on drugs and alcohol, and newly separated from his wife and kids. “I played on the streets from 1980 to 1994, 365 days a year,” Simmons tells jazz historian and biographer Marc Chaloin in Better Do It Now Before You Die Later. “I would go to North Beach, and I’d sleep in the park. The word got around town that Sonny is a junkie, really strung out.” The resurrection of Simmons’s career—upon the release of his critically acclaimed Ancient Ritual (Qwest Records) in 1994—has become a modern legend of the genre. In the last two decades of his musical career, Simmons broke through to a new echelon of recognition, embarking on successful European tours, leading new ensembles, and recording a series of twenty-first-century albums that inducted him, by his death at the age of eighty-seven, into the pantheon with the great innovators and masters of the music. But to this day he remains an undersung figure. Here, in the first-ever book dedicated to his life, Simmons recounts his childhood in the backwoods of Louisiana, his adolescence in the burgeoning Bay Area jazz scene and his star-studded life in New York playing alongside the greats: Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, and John Coltrane. His testimonies from each time and place add up to a cultural history of the late twentieth century: Simmons saw Billie Holiday and Thelonious Monk at the Black Hawk, lived through the Watts riots, stashed guns for the Blank Panther Party, brushed shoulders with Jefferson Airplane and Jimi Hendrix, and toured Europe amid the multiculturalist boom of the nineties. But it’s his keen memory for the underdogs and up-and-comers that distinguishes Simmons’s voice. He talks plenty of shit on his rivals—Pharoah Sanders and John Handy were, in Simmons’s words, “hip … great players, but I was the cat who was moving.” Meanwhile, Miles Davis was “arrogant and blasé and talking shit,” and Prince Lasha “got scandalous with his lover-man shit.” But Simmons reserves his most ferocious loyalty for names elsewhere unremembered, like the altoist Alfred Franklin, the mononymous Hop, or the Wild Man, Stanley Willis. Of the "brilliant motherfucker" and tenorist Jewel Sterling, as of many others, Simmons declares, “I don't want to forget that brother. I want to resurrect him too.”  Whether he’s writing about his many love affairs; his turbulent romantic and creative partnership with the accomplished jazz trumpeter Barbara Donald; the pain of seeing his friends and heroes laid low by addiction; or the racism he endured in evolving forms across decades and states, Simmons brings the ferocity of style that animated his music to every sentence. And underneath it all remains the electric charge of his artistic passion. “I think all I needed during them terrible periods in darkness and despair was to play,” he writes, of his hardest years in San Francisco. “To be able to express the music in me was like a cleansing ritual.” Like Charles Mingus’s Beneath the Underdog and Art Pepper’s Straight Life, Simmons’s Better Do It Now Before You Die Later delivers an unfiltered, firsthand account of life in the bebop business in all its brilliance and brutality, capturing the devastating lows of addiction, poverty, and obscurity and the ecstatic highs of a life dedicated to The Music.Hardback, 170x240, 560pp Blank Forms, 2025

marc chaloin – sonny simmons, better do it now before you die later

One hundred years ago, playwright Berta Lask (1878–1967) was commissioned by the German Communist Party to write a play marking the quatercentenary of the German Peasants’ War. She agreed, staging the reappearance of its leader Thomas Müntzer — who awakens every hundred years to address the present, represented in the prologue as a cast of striking proletarians to whom he tells his story. In the play, Lask poses a basic question: What would Thomas Müntzer see if he woke up today? A list accrues: Climate breakdown, imperialism, gendered oppression, earthquakes, genocide, impending fascism. Capitalism didn’t dig its own grave. Rather, the dead oppressors of previous centuries have been resurrected, planted in new bodies, tooled with new modes of bondage, within uneven spatial domination and temporal disjunction. Thomas Müntzer, with all of its time travel and its modes of resurrection, addresses the present from a past multiplied. For the first time, Lask’s play has been translated for a print edition alongside a set of commentaries and interventions: on everything from the “prolatarian problem play” to rainbows and bundles of twigs; from Albrecht Dürer’s monument to the slain peasants to Paul Robeson’s rendition of “Joe Hill”; from revolutionary violence to tragic commemoration.  Translated by Sam Dolbear with Esther Leslie, Joey Simons and Charlotte Thießen, both volumes are edited by Sam Dolbear. The second, commentaries, volume includes contributions by Caroline Adler, Joseph Albernaz, Hunter Bivens, Shane Boyle, Rebecca Comay, Sam Dolbear, Loren Goldman, Danny Hayward, Disha Karnad Jani, Sam Keogh, Henrike Kohpeiss, Esther Leslie, Huw Lemmey, Peter Linebaugh, Hussein Mitha, Vesa Oittinen, Hannah Proctor, Daniel Reeve, Ashkan Sepahvand, O. L. Silverman, Joey Simmons, Kerstin Stakemeier, virgil b/g taylor, and Alberto Toscano. Download as a printable PDF here. Download as a e-book here. It is our hope that readings or performance of the play take place all over the world, to mark the centenary of the play and the quincentenary of the events it depicts.  In the play, Lask poses a basic question: What would Thomas Müntzer see if he woke up today? A list accrues: Climate breakdown, imperialism, gendered oppression, earthquakes, genocide, impending fascism. Capitalism didn’t dig its own grave. Rather, the dead oppressors of previous centuries have been resurrected, planted in new bodies, tooled with new modes of bondage, within uneven spatial domination and temporal disjunction. Thomas Müntzer, with all of its time travel and its modes of resurrection, addresses the present from a past multiplied.  Softcover, A4, 2 x volumes, 92pp/ 112pp Rab-Rab, Helsinki, November 2025 Designed by Ott Kagovere, the two A4 size volumes are wrapped in a poster by artist Sam Keogh.

a play by Berta Lask – Thomas Müntzer: Dramatic depiction of the German Peasants’ War of 1525

This book is a historical and interpretive study of the movement of jazz experimentalism in West and East Germany between the years 1950 and 1975. It complicates the narratives advanced by previous scholars by arguing that engagement with black musical methods, concepts, and practices remained significant for the emergence of the German jazz experimentalism movement. In a seemingly paradoxical fashion, this engagement with black musical knowledge enabled the formation of more self-reliant musical concepts and practices. Rather than viewing the German jazz experimentalism movement in terms of dissociation from their African American spiritual fathers, this book presents the movement as having decisively contributed to the decentering of still prevalent jazz historiographies in which the centrality of the US is usually presupposed. Going beyond both US-centric and Eurocentric perspectives, this study contributes to scholarship that accounts for jazz’s global dimension and the transfer of ideas beyond nationally conceived spaces. "Few studies have understood how improvised music functions as a complex ecosystem, indeed an interlocking one that overlaps and exchanges with other like ecosystems, not just musical ones, but artistic, political, and social ones as well. Perhaps only George Lewis’s A Power Stronger Than Itself and Kevin Whitehead’s New Dutch Swing have managed to capture the intricacies of free music – or what Lewis has termed “experimentalism” – in this way, with the depth and feeling that it deserves. "Harald Kisiedu’s magnificent European Echoes: Jazz Experimentalism in Germany, 1950-75 joins the ranks of these groundbreaking books, adding indispensable substance to the current scholarship. Basing his argument on meticulous primary research that includes many unknown or under-discussed details, Kisiedu moves deftly between biography, history and analysis, ultimately depicting improvised music in Germany as part of a continuum with African American jazz, rather than falling into line with received knowledge, which has tended to treat it as a major break – an “emancipation,” to use the problematic language often deployed – from its precursors and contemporaries in the United States. This allows Kisiedu to investigate the complexities of race, in particular, in the emergent new music of both West and East Germany, but also to evaluate the specificity of German improvised music, its relationships to Fluxus and its place in relation to new art and contemporary composed music in Europe, and the political and social contexts of the divided country in which it all emerged. Along the way, Kisiedu provides the most detailed biographical portraits of his principal subjects – Peter Brötzmann, Alex Schlippenbach, Manfred Schoof, and Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky – yet published in English, and the book includes an important trove of newly discovered and previously unpublished photographs.“   John Corbett, Chicago, author of „A Listener’s Guide to Free Improvisation“ "Harald Kisiedu’s groundbreaking interdisciplinary study trenchantly illuminates how during the Cold War and after, first-generation German and Swiss experimental musicians challenged national, political, conceptual, and racial borders to produce cosmopolitan new forms and practices of free improvisation. Kisiedu brings the study of improvised music together with German studies, critical race theory, and political science to produce a rigorous yet intimate portrait of the musical, cultural, and personal relationships among highly innovative musicians who shaped a new future of music.“  George E. Lewis, author of „A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music“

Harald Kisiedu – European Echoes: Jazz Experimentalism in Germany, 1950-1975

The second Norient book «Seismographic Sounds: Visions of a New World» introduces you to a contemporary world of distinct music, sounds and music videos. Niche Music from Johannesburg to Helsinki, Jakarta to Los Angeles that speaks of a changing geography of multi-layered modernities, far beyond old ideas of North versus South, West versus East. Edited by Theresa Beyer, Thomas Burkhalter, and Hannes Liechti   Scholars, journalists, bloggers and musicians from Bolivia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Switzerland and forty-six other countries discuss artistic expressions that may not make big headlines yet, but anticipate major changes to come. Produced in oftentimes small studios from Jakarta to La Paz, Cape Town to Helsinki, these works experiment with the new possibilities of the Internet age and illuminate new spaces beyond the confines of commercialism, propaganda, and bigotry. They foresee a changing geography of multi-layered modernities, far beyond old ideas of North versus South, West versus East. Discover this through a collage of articles, interviews, quotations, photographs and lyrics. - music and money, music an loneliness, music and war, exotica, gender, sampling-culture, post-digital pop - Punk in Bolivia and Indonesia, Electronic Music in Egypt, Underground Pop from South Africa and Nigeria, Rap in Pakistan, Serbia, Chile and Ghana, Noise Music from Israel, Seapunk and Vaporwave from the US, Post Digital Pop from the UK, Neuer Konzeptualismus, and much more. contributions by Aisha Deme, Jenny Mbaye, Wayne Marshall, Cande Sánchez Olmos, John Hutnyk, Thomas Burkhalter, Andy Bennett, Theresa Beyer, Sandeep Bhagwati, Hillegonda C. Rietveld, Ali Haider Habib, Arie Amaya-Akkermans, Martin Daughtry, Hannes Liechti, Derek Walmsley, Elijah Wald, C-drík Fermont, FrankJavCee, Florian Sievers, Percy Mabandu, Louise Gray, Nabeel Zuberi, Kimberly DaCosta Holton, Julio Mendívil, Oliver Seibt, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, Emma Dabiri, Jonathan Fischer, B Camminga, Sonja Eismann, Michael Rebhahn, Eduardo Navas, Adam Harper, and many more.edited by Theresa Beyer, Thomas Burkhalter, Hannes Liechti Softcover, 504ppNorient Books, Bern, 2015Languages: English (75%), German (24%), French, Italian (1%)

visions of a new world – seismographic sounds

The new Norient book Home is Where the Heart Strives explores what place means in relation to music and sound. 85 contributors from 38 countries map their sonic landscapes of migration, war, queerness, and home through essays, poems, articles, artworks, photos, and songs. From a metalhead smuggling banned tapes across the Syrian border to an oasis in the mountains of Bogotá where people gather to vogue, we are looking for places where differences don’t dissolve but resonate.   with contributions by Lendl Barcelos, Bananamonkey, Basil Anliker aka Baze, Marina Benetti, Persis Bekkering, Birds WG, Penelope Braune, Thomas Burkhalter, Kadallah Burrowes, Sinatra Chumo, Juliana Cuervo, Sumangala Damodaran, Domingos, Rana Eid, Ronja Falkenbach, Faravaz Farvadin, Šejma Fere, Vera Fonseca, Chandra Frank, Sally Garama, Dennis Gupa, Rehab Hazgui, Sizo Hlope, Hitman Kaht, Umi Hsu, Ibaaku, Andra Ivănescu, Bruce Johnson, Devangana Kalita, Paul Kammies, Raphael Kariuki aka djrPH, Karun, Anahid Kassabian, Paola LaForgia, Sasha J. Langford, Lutivini Majanja, Chris McGuinness, Elia Meier, Luigi Monteanni, Zahra Motallebi, Jesse Munene, Isaac Abraham Williams aka Isaac Mutant, Natasha Narwal, Janina Neustupny, Saba Niazmand, Kai Oh, Shaahin Peymani, Vinzent Maria Preuẞ, Nazifah Raidah, Philipp Rhensius aka Alienationist, Urs Rihs, Rami Sabbagh, Tanasgol Sabbagh, Sergio Salazar, Justin Oliver Salhani, Jacek Szczepanek Nate Sloan, André Santos, Diana Santos, Ali Sayah, Tillman Severin, Martin Stokes, Studio Flux, Anubhuti Sharma, Majd Shidiac, Jorgé Aarón Silva Rodríguez, Thasil Suhara Backer, Suvani Suri, Gisela Swaragita, Pjotr Tkacz-Bielewicz, Shzr Ee Tan, Wiwi Tri, Fujiko Urdininea, Maria Uthe, Ujif_notfound, Upendra Vaddadi, Abhishek Vidyarthy Singh, Johann Voigt, Elijah Wald, McKenzie Wark, Arief Wibisono, Ytasha Womack, Kimihiro Yasakaedited by Philipp Rhensius, Janina Neustupny, Thomas Burkhalter, Hannes Liechti, and Vinzent Maria Preuß    Softback ,16.5 × 23.5 cm, full colour, 314ppNorient Books, Bern, July 2025

home is where the heart strives

Optically Suspicious is a publication by Matrijaršija on the life, work, and cultural and artistic activities of the Union of Graphic and Typographic Workers of Yugoslavia. The book is the result of research in the Union’s archives in the Printed Material Collection of the Museum of Yugoslavia in Belgrade. Matrijaršija reconstructs the forgotten history of the leftist graphic and typographic workers by studying the Union’s posters and leaflets, which bear witness to their rich artistic and cultural programme realised between 1920 and 1941. The book offers engaging theoretical discussions on the importance of cultural and artistic (self-)organisation and the significance of solidarity among workers in the printing industry. The members of the Matrijaršija collective bring this history to life in a series of collages, visual poems, plays, and short stories. Optically Suspicious is the first volume in the ‘tehnika’ series, which focuses on the technical aspects of radical publishing practices. The volumes in the series will discuss the ways in which radical and independent publishing practices introduce entirely new forms of printing, typography, design, distribution and content. Edited by Rab-Rab Press, Matrijaršija and Baraba, the aim of the series is to deal with the actuality of the fluid form of revolutionary printing “techniques” and to develop and connect them with contemporary publishing practices. Conceived, designed and printed by Matrijaršija, Optically Suspicious is entirely manufactured with risporint and is the expanded edition and translation of the first Serbo-Croatian version published in 2022 in collaboration with the Museum of Yugoslavia.  Founded in 2014 in Belgrade, the autonomous cultural centre Matrijaršija is a collective focused on printmaking and independent publishing. With over a decade of experience in screen printing and five years in risograph printing, it promotes experimental techniques and practices, as well as alternative forms of artistic organisation.Hardcover, Pocket-sized  Rab-Rab, Belgrade, May 2025

Matrijaršija – optically suspicious

Softcover, 11 x 16 Rab-Rab, October 2025Lostlingual by Dinara Rasuleva is the first volume of the sdvig series, dedicated to translingual avant-garde writing. In this volume, Rasuleva, a Berlin-based poet, returns to Tatar, the language of her childhood. She had used it only rarely as an adult, and never before as a creative writer—the national language of her people, smothered by Russian colonialism. She sets herself the goal of composing poetry in Tatar as she remembers it, without consulting dictionaries and grammars. The result is a collection of fragile and liberatory translingual poems, in which Tatar, English, German, and Russian call out, respond to, and transform one another.  Sdvig: translingual avant-gardes is edited by poet and translator Eugene Ostashevsky. Sdvig,a term used by the historical avant-garde in the late Russian Empire and the early Soviet Union to describe distortion and fracture of communication norms,derives from the verb sdvinut’: to cause something to move, usually from one place to another. On the verbal plane, the most common variety of sdvig is the pun, which estranges language by foregrounding materiality, obfuscating reference, and multiplying meanings. We are calling our series of translingual avant-garde writing sdvig, because translingualism, originating in the displacement of the body, ends up violating linguistic borders and adulterates “the language of the tribe”, which poetry once set out to “purify”. We are also calling our series sdvig, because, by questioning and estranging communication—especially interlingual and intercultural communication—translingualism at once illuminates and sabotages translation, ultimately turning it into a variety of wordplay. With Rasuleva’s introduction and Ostashevsky’s afterword, Lostlingual also explores the social and conceptual perspectives of translingual poetry. The sdvig series is designed by Bardhi Haliti.

Dinara Rasuleva – Lostlingual