Kindred spirits Passepartout Duo and Inoyama Land embody the essence of play – charting a new chapter and reinvigorating the environmental music and electronic landscape. Passepartout Duo is formed of Nicoletta Favari (IT) and Christopher Salvito (IT/US), who since 2015 have been on a continuous journey travelling the world’s corners, engaged in a creative process they term “slow music”. Having been guests of many notable artist residencies and with live performances in cultural spaces and institutions, their evocative music escapes categorisation. With no fixed abode their musical pilgrimage brought them to Japan first in 2019, which prompted a deep connection to Kankyō Ongaku ‘environmental music’, a genre in which Inoyama Land is often associated with, soundtracking the duo’s first immersive experience. In 2023 the duo revisited Japan and set out to reconnect in particular with the music of Inoyama Land, performed by Makoto Inoue and Yasushi Yamashita. The highly revered album ‘Danzindan-Pojidon’ (1983) produced by Haruomi Hosono amongst other well publicized and acclaimed reissues (Light in The Attic Records’ Grammy-nominated compilation ‘Kankyō Ongaku’), produced a global resurgence and admiration of the environmental music movement. Nicoletta took the lead to seek out Inoyama Land and in making contact successfully their intrigue and eagerness to meet was warmly reciprocated, and the group scheduled to meet in the form of a spontaneous improvisation session. “We’re deeply concerned with what it means to be a duo, and what it means for people to connect through music.” 'Radio Yugawara' was recorded in 2023 in Makoto Inoue’s hometown of Yugawara where his family runs a kindergarten, whose space has doubled as a Sunday recording studio. Upon arriving a circle of four tables was set up in the school’s auditorium - the tables were carefully populated with children’s instruments: a full set of handbells, a glockenspiel, a xylophone, recorders, melodicas, and harmonicas. Surrounding the tables were racks hanging all sorts of bells and wind chimes and within this environment each performer set up their own electronic instruments. Dialling into each other, a simple set of playground ‘game rules’ was devised where time was divided into three separate sessions (1) ‘only electronic instruments’, ‘only acoustic’, and ‘a mix of both’, (2) ‘revolving duets’ each taking turns to play through a cycle of ‘four duos’ and (3) ‘anything permitted’, accumulating to more than three hours of material which was then carefully distilled into succinct tracks. The alluring album opener ‘Strange Clouds’ oscillates into view, setting a lush scenery built from a bed of synthesisers and the first glimpse of the chromaplane, the hand-built analogue instrument designed by Passepartout Duo, featuring a touchless interface and endless organic sounds that underpin the album’s 11-track inlets. Percussive pulses act as the heartbeat to ‘Abstract Pets’ before earthy sub-swells open the pathway to glistening glockenspiels and wind chimes. The atmosphere shapeshifts with ‘Simoom’ and ‘Tangerine Fields’ with swirling synth lines and subliminal beats resembling changes in weather patterns. At the centre points the idyllic ‘Observatory’ and ‘Mosaic’ could illuminate the deepest oceans before the hypnotic, arpeggiating synth lines in the otherworldly ‘Xiloteca’ propel the album towards ‘Solivago’, with its gentle lullaby of playful ambience. The reflective closer ‘Axolotl Dreams’ resolves their somewhat chance meeting with elegant pastoral chord strokes and uplifting synth swells, sending final signals upwards into the ether. 'Radio Yugawara' is a unique one-off transmission from a specific place and point in time, unlikely to ever occur again. The respective duo’s approach can really be described as “tuning in”, a tuning into each other, to themselves, and to the surrounding nature of Yugawara. Like waves that travel off-world, sounds travel through the universe and can be lost forever if we don’t seek them out. In finding a harmonic affinity within their instruments and a spiritual kinship in their interwoven performance, Radio Yugawara at its core is an interpretation of feeling, of close human interaction and the true essence of discovery. “The album is both a transmission from a location, but also a tuning into the surroundings and to each other. Music in this kind of ephemeral moment is much less about active creation and more about discovering something which is already there in the air.”

Roberto Cacciapaglia is an Italian composer and pianist who started out in the fertile Milan avant-garde scene of the 1970s, which included Franco Battiato, Giusto Pio, Lino Capra Vaccina, Francesco Messina, among others. After studying at the conservatory, he worked at RAI's Studio of Musical Phonology – an electronic music laboratory similar to NDR/WDR in Germany, GRM/IRCAM in France or BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Sonanze (Sonatas) is Cacciapaglia's debut album, a monumental work that was recorded over a two-year period and released in 1975 via seminal German label Die Kosmischen Kuriere (Ohr). While a "sonata" is traditionally performed by easily distinguishable instrumentalists (often soloist and accompaniment) and with repeated structural themes, Cacciapaglia flips this hierarchical form on its head – blending harpsichord, strings, brass and analog synths to create ambient mini-soundtracks. As the composer writes in the original sleeve notes, "I am aware, unfortunately, that I am a few millennia late in how I would like music to be understood, which today I find diluted in its primary powers, in an era that is destructive of essential values. Precisely for this reason, I want to search for it in depth and not on the surface, perhaps alternating the knob of a synthesizer with a marranzano (mouth harp)." Mixed in quadrophonic surround-sound under the auspices of Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser (celebrated producer of Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel), Sonanze remains on the fringe of Kosmische realms. Each movement explores hypnotic rhythms, intuitive arrangements, musique concrète techniques and a pure psychedelic awakening.

Blue Lake’s new offering ‘Weft’ sees its creator Jason Dungan unearth new musical terrain with a mini-album which presents the projects evolution. Finding inspiration in the craft of weaving and embracing a collective spirit as a band leader, all while readying a new studio album expected later in 2025. The earthy title track ‘Weft’ emerges with a sense of ease and familiarity as looping guitar riffs in open tunings bed in around a warm cello pulse that provides the essential heartbeat. These interlinking parts align to create his most explicit version yet of an American writing country music in Scandinavia. Dungan named the release ‘Weft’ as a reference to the weaving practice of his partner, Danish visual artist Maria Zahle, whose work “Torso” is featured on the album’s cover. With her works providing a constant source of inspiration to his music and practice as an instrument-builder, Dungan found a symbiotic connection between their mediums, which is reflected in the music on ‘Weft’. “There’s a not so subtle visual relation between the masses of strings on the instrument and the masses of thread on a loom. Weaving allows you to have an intimate relationship between the many individual parts of a piece, as well as the finished whole, and I think for me that watching her process on the loom for many years has deeply impacted the ways in which I think about music.” A unique element to the overall sound was an acute focus on first-takes and favouring instruments seldom used in previous recordings: piano, melodica, 12-string guitar. Three out of five tracks were fully or mainly recorded live, with the exception of ‘The Forest’ (originating in Andersabo, Sweden) with the rest recorded at his home studio in Copenhagen, during Winter 2023/24. Layered acoustic guitars slowly build and shape-shift, met with zither, piano, flute and clarinet flourishes. Even the faintly audible sound of Dungan’s own breathing all combines to form an endlessly morphing tapestry of shapes, forms, and colours with endless depth. Three key components form the tangible makeup of ‘Weft’ as Dungan reasserts his skills as a “songwriter”, whilst further developing his “live” practice, interplayed with the “studio” acting as a compositional space to investigate, re-shape and find final form. As we arrive at ‘Oceans’, a folk counterpart to the opener ‘Weft’ Dungan floods the listener with his own form of storytelling, but again, one told without words. Built from a single nylon guitar, some wisps of extra guitar and plucked cello bass – a narrative evolves triggering personal associations with a vast expanse. A reminder of the human strands ever present at the core of his writing. Dungan welcomes the Blue Lake band to the studio on ‘Tatara’, named after a Volcano in the Andes mountain range which became the life’s work of his geologist father. Written and developed in rehearsals for an array of upcoming live concerts; it features Carolyn Goodwin (bass clarinet), Tomo Jacobson (double bass), and Pauline Hogstrand (viola). The recorded version ended up being the very first take with the band seeking to capture an immediacy in their performance. Gathering found objects collected in the farmhouse in Sweden: metal, driftwood, a bicycle tire, Jason then added experimental percussive elements including his own handmade carved log drum, resulting in a firelit breakout that could depict a lone figure aware of the landscape’s indifference. ‘Strata’ closes the sequence with a beguiling live solo recording on a new 36-string zither, designed by Dungan and hand built by a local luthier. Its louder, richer and deeper tones ring out in abundance. ‘Weft’ is a collection of new works that casts a net into new sound territories with distinctive timbres yet always channelled through the refined lens of Dungan’s prism. Infused with an ongoing connection to nature, it furthermore expands his unique meld of off-kilter folk, jazz, country and left-field experimental ambience. ‘Weft’ then is an accomplishment of growth, of bolder objectives and of collaboration with like minds. The Blue Lake project takes a dynamic step forward venturing into new creative spaces while leaving some clues along the way. “Performing live, with the band and solo, was really opening up my thinking to ways in which the music could grow and develop, and make use of the dynamics of live performance.”

Variations On A Theme by OM" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">Variations On A Theme by OM" />OM reunites one of the most powerful rhythm sections in rock music: Al Cisneros [bass, vocals] and Chris Hakius [drums], both ex-members of the legendary Sleep. Variations on a Theme is comprised of three long songs employing a series of rhythmic chants whose cadence-like textural drive conveys flight. The album's numerous lyrics serve as symbolist vehicles to a state outside the field of time and space. Variations on a Theme is a series of vibrations and flow. The opening track,"On The Mountain at Daw" is the thematic blueprint of the entire album; a transportive series of differentiated verse with sets of solid groove. "Kapil's Them" furthers the motif while the closer "Annapurna" breaks the spell, where the final wash of sound reflects the infinite.

In 1973, the Sound Sculpture Show took place at the Vancouver Art Gallery. An LP audio catalogue (with a booklet) of the exhibition, entitled “The Sounds of Sound Sculpture”, was released in 1975 under the supervision of the Canadian sound sculptor John Grayson and US composer David Rosenboom. Grayson had edited an important early book on the field, “Sound Sculpture”. The LP included rare takes of Rosenboom and Grayson, amongst others, playing famous pieces by pioneering sound sculptors including the Baschet brothers and Harry Bertoia, the latter best known for his Sonambient series. It also included some of the few recordings by Stephan Von Huene, who had begun to create his kinetic sculptures, and the profound atmospheric pressure systems constructed by the New York sound artist David Jacobs. The LP comes complete with a booklet of visually arresting photos and other materials about these historic sound sculptures.

Razen is the collective consciousness of core members Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour, who since 2010 have realized themselves through virtuoistic and highly expressive improvisations with lesser-heard instruments. Experimenting with repetition of tones through controlled breathing and phrasing, Razen arrive at a synesthetic playground of auditory textures and colorful imagery. The ensemble is carefully orchestrated for every occasion with the intent and desire to escape to environments unbeknownst to them, taking shelter in the fleeting ego-dissolving moments that arise, whether divine or disturbing. While the formula of instrumentation and like-minded peers may appear mundane on paper, it’s Brecht and Kim’s outlook and imagination beyond musical references that’s the immeasurable catalyst to their peculiar pursuits. Conversations about paintings, books, or films ultimately manifest themselves into live performances or album recordings - with the philosophy of embracing playfulness and exploration through the lens of a child’s eye. Only six collaborators have been invited to their inner circle to date. This is mainly attributed to the rarity of finding spiritual counterparts that are seeking freedom outside the confines of written musical scores. Trading notes and rhythms for strokes and color, the band embodies emotive and meditative drones that demand a deep listening state. Joined by Will Guthrie and Paul Garriau, Razen venture into their vision of Arcadia through Regression, proudly presented by Marionette. On this album, Brecht Ameel turns to his trusty prepared harmonium and celesta, while Kim Delcour controls air and breath on various wind and reed instruments. Featuring Will Guthrie on tuned and melodic percussion (timpani, glockenspiel, marimba, vibraphone), the recordings have a distinct flow and fluid movement when compared to some of Razen’s previous works where rhythm is taking a backseat. Hurdy-gurdy specialist, Paul Garriau, plays accompanying melodies and drones on Moon, Aether and Nebula. The album's earthly elements deal with survival, timelessness, and simplicity; such as the life affirming rewards of finding refuge and the wonders of observing the interstellar. The unearthly elements pitch this narrative into the realm of mythology and superstition, in the hopes of trying to understand our primeval universe and thrive in the unknown. Regression also addresses Razen’s fascination with inhospitable places and how to adapt to the sorrows that come with this sort of brutalism. The resulting destination is a mind and time bending zone - one that can be reached by riding sound waves that transcend the past, future, and present. Razen on this occasion is: Brecht Ameel: harmonium, celesta Kim Delcour: winds, reeds Will Guthrie: percussion Paul Garriau: hurdy-gurdy on Moon, Aether, and Nebula

Ali Buh Baeh Records / Editions Memoire White Vinyl. Edition of 300 Jean-Luc Guionnet - electric organs, electronics, alto saxophone Will Guthrie - drums, percussion, microphones Recorded at Studio (H)Indre in 2019 Mixed at Ty Karr Mastered by Joe Talia Maxed out and burning hot nasty, Electric Rag brings together the electric organs, electronics and alto sax of Jean-Luc Guionnet, with the closely amplified drums and percussion of Will Guthrie. After years of playing together in the minimalist pointillist free jazz noise core trio ‘The Ames Room’ (with Clayton Thomas on bass) Electric Rag offers up another point of view on a musical history of nearly 15 years of playing together. The 8 titles of Electric Rag draw on their various experience in electronic music, free improvisation and experimental sound research, however the music is deeply rooted in their love of jazz, in its most potent, aggressive and antisocial form.

Real Real World is the first collaborative effort from Nantes-based Australian drummer/percussionist Will Guthrie and Australian keyboardist/composer James Rushford. --- Primarily recorded in a fluid, spontaneous studio session in Nantes, with overdubs added later in Melbourne and Nantes, Real Real World presents five spacious, unhurried pieces that inhabit a unique sound world characterised by wheezing, half-voiced organ chords, chiming metal percussion, and eruptions of small sounds. Beginning with the eerily beautiful, shakuhachi-esque sound of Rushford performing on detuned portative organ, the opening title track is abruptly transformed by the entry of Guthrie’s sizzling cymbals, deep gong strikes, and rustling hand percussion. On the epic ‘Lumbering’, which occupies the majority of the record’s first side, organ chords define a space in which a kaleidoscopic succession of amplified thuds, chiming bells, rustled and dragged objects, and abruptly silenced clusters advance and recede in an oneiric blur, eventually making way for a passage of Guthrie’s virtuosic polyrhythms, itself unexpectedly overtaken by waves of melting fairground organ. The record reaches an energetic climax mid-way through the second side with the stunning ‘Slakes’, where lugubrious chords in the organ’s lowest register are joined by Guthrie’s skittering rhythms, which somehow manage to call to mind both the most chaotic moments of Balinese Gamelan and the stochastic breakbeats of late-90s Autechre. On this piece, Guthrie and Rushford are joined by Melbourne saxophone maverick Scott McConnachie, who contributes an alto sax solo of burning precision, working with a single-minded palette of piercing long tones and wild intervallic leaps. Though it makes extensive use of overdubbing, Real Real World retains a strong sense of having been performed, rather than constructed: while at times the fleeting succession of events can recall electroacoustic music, its primarily acoustic nature and unhurried pace is also reminiscent of the music of AACM affiliates or Marion Brown’s classic Afternoon of a Georgia Faun. Immediately engaging while also hiding countless details in the folds of its polychrome fabric, Real Real World is a relaxed and joyous document of collaborative musical invention.  --- Percussion: Will Guthrie Keyboard/Composer: James Rushford --- Artwork by Patrizia Bach. Layout by Lasse Marhaug. Mixed and mastered by Joe Talia at Good Mixture, Berlin. Black Truffle, 2021

Keefe Jackson - Tenor and Sopranino Saxophone Oscar Jan Hoogland - Piano Joshua Abrams - Double Bass Mikel Patrick Avery - Drums Epistrophy & Bemsha Swing written by Thelonious Monk Gotta Get Some Sleep written by Dewey Redman The Happenings written by Herbie Nichols Wimpel & Aanhanghuis written by Oscar Jan Hoogland Arrangements on Gotta Get Some Sleep, The Happenings & Bemsha Swing by Oscar Jan Hoogland Recorded at Bimhuis Amsterdam on April 29, 2016

Previously released in 1980 on David Toop’s Quartz label at a time when improvised music in London was settling into a long spell of excellence. The players here are Steve Beresford, Peter Cusack, Terry Day and David Toop. Terry had been a member of The People Band in the 60s, one of the groups forming part of the first wave of British improvisation. The rest of the group could be regarded as pioneers of a second generation of improvisers who emerged out of the explosion of musical development that came in the wake of AMM, Derek Bailey, SME etc. Out of this burst of musical energy a platform soon emerged in the form of the London Musicians Collective. A permanent venue and an open network were soon established and the seeds were planted for a wide range of new and exciting players to explore the possibilities of free improvisation. The first Alterations LP from 1978 exemplifies this, with new ideas literally brought to the table - alongside the numerous conventional instruments played by the group, a plethora of simple musical toys, sound makers and home made instruments were used. Up Your Sleeve is their 2nd LP and operates in a similar territory, but takes things to another level with its casual embrace of noise and feedback, and somewhat controversially for improv; fragments of familiar songs and a hearty indulgence in rhythm. In short, Up Your Sleeve is free improvisation drawn from a very broad range of components. It should be said that all the members of the group were also at the same time in bands that played songs, most notably Steve’s involvement with The Slits and The Flying Lizards. David also briefly basked as a Lizard, but all 4 members were singing the same tune in both The 49 Americans and The Promenaders. Maybe it’s not so surprising to hear stylistic clashes exploited on this record. London was awash with musical development in the early 80s. Apart from the burgeoning LMC scene there were many post punk and experimental groups like This Heat and Swell Maps that enriched the creative atmosphere. London labels like Quartz along with Recommended Records, It’s War Boys, Incus, Industrial, United Dairies and countless others were all releasing ground breaking experimental music. It was arguably the best time for experimental music in London. There was certainly something in the air. Released in an edition of 500 with a numbered 4 page insert.

Empty Editions presents Palina’tufa, the newest work from saxophonist Seymour Wright and percussionist Paul Abbott’s long-running duo XT. Wright and Abbot’s respective practices have been marked by a simultaneous engagement (with) and desire to challenge the limitations (of) the British tradition of improvised music - represented by groups such as AMM and John Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble. This album charts a new trajectory for Wright and Abbott, as they draw on recent live collaborations with RP Boo and Container in developing a sound which hybridizes the spontaneous interplay and timbral experimentation of free improvisation with the recursive formal structures of dance music. The album’s title is an enigmatic portmanteau of “Palina” (taken from the name of a species of butterfly sighted by the duo during recording) combined with the word “Tufa” -- a type of rock composed of ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption; the bedrock of the island of Hong Kong. Compellingly, the green sheen of the Palinurus butterfly is not produced by pigments, but emanates from the microstructure of it’s wing scales. Similarly, XT’s Palina’tufa contains a brilliant internal logic of stacked component parts all amalgamated into a singularly iridescent instrumental structure. Recorded during a two week studio residency in Hong Kong, Palina’tufa departs from XT’s previous albums - primarily documentations of live performances - in its embrace of the recording studio as a form of instrumentation: a tool to sculpt, overdub and (re)assemble their chimeric sounds. The result is a striking cybernetic version of the classic sax-and-drums duo pioneered by legendary groupings such as John Coltrane and Rashied Ali, Evan Parker & Paul Lytton, and Jimmy Lyons & Andrew Cyrille. Palina’tufa turns the implied (and frankly, somewhat tired) tropes of this form on its head, pushing restlessly forward into the domain of a synthetic post-genre music. Wright's unconventional use of feedback and Abbott's heavily deconstructed electro-dance textures expand upon this simulated space, unfurling their instrumentation into an authentically liberated territory. Across four dynamic fifteen minute cuts, the duo craft an esoteric response to the real (and imagined) landscape(s) of Hong Kong. Interpreting their experience of the island as a kind of extended metaphor, Palina’tufa translates chance encounters, pockets of cultural history, vernacular architecture, and local wildlife (among other phenomena) into organizing principles for the creation of speculative music. Palina’tufa is a brilliant showcase of Wright and Abbott’s composite sound: naturally synergistic, with careful attention paid to how psychogeographical experience is transposed into the deeply considered interplay of their respective instruments. A stunning listen, the album’s various movements respond to scenes in proximity to the Tin Wan (Aberdeen) area: the past/future poise of Permanent Cemetery; the human densities of Duck Tongue Island; the black garlic/gypsum of Empty Gallery itself. Palina’tufa expands on this emerging style of electronically mediated improvised music by further compartmentalizing their playing through a series of concepts, limits, and methods to organize their materials into distinct classifications. This approach creates an album architecture, a time/space organized into “Stacks” (recalling vertical cylinders, tubes, pipes, columns), “Orbits” (recalling Chinese folk music, weather systems, paths travelling upward), and “Angles of Incidence,” (a concept inspired by Pere Portabella and Cecil Taylor) that responds to the social, physical, and temporal forces of a city. Loosely, these structures spatially reorganize the “time” in their playing, reversing, eliding, truncating, and magnifying content. This technique recalls everything from Anthony Braxton’s diagrammatic lines, colours, and figures that encode structural and vibrational elements of sound, through the pentatonic scale of Chinese folk music that was integrated into a symbolic matrix referencing the movements of the seasons, planets, and body-politic, to Alejo Carpentier’s search for a musical origin in fiction.

What Is Not Strange? is the first full-length solo album by Los Angeles-based composer Tashi Wada, comprising his most far-reaching and impassioned music to date. Written and recorded over a period that encompassed the death of his father and the birth of his daughter, the album sees Wada reflecting inward to explore broad narratives—being alive, mortality, finding one’s place in the world—through new modes of ecstatic, song-based expression. While the denser forms, stark contrasts, and overt surreality may carry a different weight than Wada’s earlier work, which elicited perceptual effects with minimal means, the heart of What Is Not Strange? is still in experimentation and unforeseen outcomes.

LUKAS DE CLERCK brings the telescopic aulos, which his new interpretation of long-form expression coaxed forth on this tremendous recording. Lukas de Clerck explores a niche of archaeological research in music; the aulos is a historical Greek instrument that Lukas analyzed and reinterpreted by a luthier in modern times—navigating this impression as an artwork or living sculptural object, as there is an absence of historical partitions or written information about how to recreate technique on the instrument. Lukas de Clerck has interpreted information from the rare archaeological resources and visual art of the classical period to recreate both playing technique and possible sound timbres with the instrument. With his contemporary approach to drone, post-minimalist music, and contemporary folk, we find a deeply satisfying and compelling, even playful set of songs, timbral exercises and compositions. "The morphology of the aulos is defined by its reeds. The tubular memory inside the plant's fibre will ensure it closes and opens naturally, like the mouth that blows breath inside. The reeds are the core, the sound source—the naked instrument. They behave like two oscillators, bending high-pitched notes into beatings. The pipes are a context, a channel for the sound. They create a narrative." An essential document of new music meets contemporary archaemusicological research via Stephen O'Malley of SUNN O)))'s label Ideologic Organ.

Timothy Archambault’s unaccompanied flute pieces for this album have been inspired by Indigenous brontomancy (divination by thunder). Each piece highlights a different extended flute technique metaphorically related to types of thunder sounds: claps, peals, rolls, rumbles, inversions, and CG (cloud-to-ground). The Indigenous flute used in this recording is made of cedar respective to the traditional woods used by the Kichesipirini and other tribes who live along the Ottawa & Saint Lawrence Rivers. To the Algonquin the flute (Pibigwan) is the wind maker or essence of the wind. Unlike other tribal nations whom the majority used the flute as a courting instrument, the Algonquin generally utilized the flute for more contemplative singular usage to mimic the sounds of nature or as a signaling device during times of conflict. When love songs were required, they were usually more plaintive in character expressing sadness, loneliness, or concerning the departure of a lover. The album intro begins with the shaking of a necklace of otter penis bone, fish spine, bear claw, elk teeth and deer hide, gifted from Algonquin Elder Ajawajawesi. It is meant to focus the listener’s attention before the flute pieces begin. The warble or multi-phonic oscillation prevalent in all the pieces traditionally represented the “throat rattling” vocalization of the tonic note, sometimes known as the horizon of which the melody floats from. Due to the repetition of multi-phonic oscillation the performer will breathe erratically creating an altered state correlating with similar traditional ceremonial practices. An important document of new music meets contemporary musicological research via Stephen O’Malley of SUNN O)))’s Ideologic Organ.

Chita, the third album proper by Japanese guitar pop trio Usurabi, is their most elegant, stylish confection yet. Over the past four years, Toshimitsu Akiko (vocals, guitar), Kawaguchi Masami (bass) and Morohashi Shigeki (drums) have been recording, playing live, and releasing songs of rare melodic warmth, centring Toshimitsu’s unique musical vision, where melancholy and joy can co-exist, a split-second flick of her wrist switchblading the guitar from languorous sweetness to overloaded rock action. Chita expands on the smartly sculpted pop and rock songs found on their previous albums, Remains Of The Light (2021) and Outside Of The World (2023), while infusing the music with more of the rough-housing energy that also coursed through the live CD, Once In A Red Room, they self-released in January 2024. There’s still a through-line, of course, that connects the music here to Toshimitsu’s earlier groups, Doodles and Animone, ,but Chita feels more deeply like a sussed, sharp take on the crumbling edges of sixties psychedelic folk and rock: the harmonica that blasts through the opener, “Bansho”, is pure Dylan in effect. One of the many smart things about Usurabi, though, is that they never feel beholden to the historical moment. Soon after “Bansho”, we encounter “TurnOff”, a lush pop song that turns on a dime, with Toshimitsu tearing fuzztone notes from six strings that are like a more folk-reverent Kaneko Jutok. And there’s something about the guitar and bass riff that doubles through the thrilling two-and-a-half minutes of “Hakanonaka” that’s a dead ringer for the Only Ones. Flip the record, and things get more expansive, the spindly jangling of the title song spiralling ever inwards, before the sweet, sugary rush of “Kanata” resolves to the martial rhythms that pulse through “Aseranai”, winding the album down to its poetic, becalmed resolution.

Warm Currency—the duo of Australian artists/musicians MP Hopkins and Mary MacDougall—return for their third release on Horn Of Plenty, following up Returns (2022) and Live at the Petersham Bowling Club (2023). On Petals, the pair’s haunting folk music comes into sharper focus while broadening their sonic palette. Spoken word meets chanted incantations, gently fingerpicked acoustic guitar is placed alongside spindly piano melodies, the creak of floorboards in the background mirrors the creak of fingerprints dragged across guitar strings. Woven throughout are bursts of tape-recorded radio static that reveal hardly distinguishable voices while MacDougall sings of equally fleeting phenomena. Winds, breezes, and mists rattle through houses and crumbling cityscapes throughout, with objects in a constant state of flux: growing, burning, drying, rotting, or unfurling. Such cryptic suggestions and surreal imagery evade easy parsing but like a poignant dream linger with the listener.

We Jazz Reworks is an idea that repurposes some of the label’s output 10 albums at a time. That is, we invite producers whose music we love on board, and one by one, they tackle 10 albums worth of source material, of which they are free to use as much or as little as they choose. The series evolves chronologically, so this volume being number two, the source material is pulled from We Jazz LPs numbers 11 through 20. The artist has complete freedom. Volume 2 in the series happens with Carl Stone, a legendary figure in creative music. His career spans decades of unlimited musical innovation. Stone’s recent output on Unseen Worlds, the label who has also been instrumental in issuing some of his remarkable earlier work, ranks among the most original art of our time and renders notions such as ”genre” virtually meaningless. Here, We Jazz originals by Terkel Nørgaard, OK:KO, Jonah Parzen-Johnson and more are met here with a fresh sense of discovery, spun around and delivered ready for the turntable once again. Carl Stone says: ”It was wonderful that We Jazz gave me carte blanche to work with any materials from the set of ten releases in its catalog. This freedom to work with everything could have been a mixed blessing though, as it could be a challenge to try to deal with so much musical information. In the end I did what I almost always do: Let my intuition be my guide and to seize upon any musical items that seemed to fit into an overall approach.” ”To make a new piece I usually start with an extended period of what really is just playing, the way a child plays with toys. Experimentation without necessary expectation, leading to (hopefully) discovery of things of musical interest, then figuring out a way to craft and shape these into a structured piece of music. Each track uses a different approach, which I found along the way during this play period.” This conceptual approach becomes complete with the design, in which album graphics are treated in a similar fashion, reworking what’s there. This time around, the artwork is reinvented by Tuomo Parikka, a great friend of the We Jazz collective and a regular cover collage contributor for the We Jazz Magazine.