Zack Clarke piano and electronics
Henry Fraser double bass
Dre Hocevar drums

"Random Acts of Order boldly confronts some of the core questions posed by free music. Working with two of the most dynamic young talents on the improvised music scene, bassist Henry Fraser and percussionist/composer Dre Hocevar, Zack Clarke explores a space between order and freedom that is represented by the polarities of idiomatic expectations and free improvisation. The results are explored through forms..

Zack Clarke piano
Kim Cass double bass
Dre Hocevar drums

"Pianist and composer Zack Clarke is a worker of forms, expanding the ones he chooses far beyond their conventions. Of course, when manipulating form, Clarke manages all of the inherent idiomatic factors while keeping himself away from any established sublabels, be it “third stream”, “fusion” or “collage”. After dealing with electro-acoustic projects including his acclaimed Random Acts of Order and Mesophase, his focus returns to...

The 2nd release by this sensational 'jazz and beyond' ensemble. Their music, while clearly influenced by the jazz idiom, goes far beyond jazz, and many parts of this record have more in common with musicians such as L'Ensemble Raye, Hamster Theatre, Ni...

The Claudia Quintet is proof positive that the pessimists were wrong: jazz is not dead, despite being embalmed by major labels and confined by some musicians to dead ends. In the works of this sensational NY-based, 'jazz and beyond' ensemble, jazz has broken through its rigid shell and been reborn in shimmering and beautifully alluring new form. It lives and breathes in music that melds influences from classical minimalism, new music composition, and progressive and post-rock with an astonishingly fresh...

“You’d never mistake Claudia for anyone else.” – DownBeat

“Sensing the tipping point where improvisation undermines a composer's intentions, or composition imprisons good improvisers, is the challenge for musicians who like giving equal weight to both – and the Claudia Quintet are frontrunners at this tricky game.” – The Guardian...

For their sixth album, What Is the Beautiful?, The Claudia Quintet brings together the acclaimed compositional approach of leader John Hollenbeck with two of the most important male singers in improvised music, Kurt Elling and Theo Bleckmann. Elling and Bleckmann recite and sing the poems of avant-garde/proto-beat American poet, Kenneth Patchen, an innovator in his time.

"Claudia with vocals?" Yes, Claudia with vocals, and it will probably not surprise...

Lol Coxhill-soprano sax
Charles Hayward-drums
Hugh Hopper-bass
Orphy Robinson-vibes, steel drums
with
Robert Wyatt-cornet

The first release (and sadly the only one) by this improvising group of established figures from the creative rock and improvised music scene in Britain. They've been together for a few years now, plays shows when circumstances permit, and it's great that they've finally documented something. This pretty quickly finds its feet, finds a groove and keeps.

Barry's intention with his latest release, Volcano, is to explore music based on African and Afro-Haitian rhythms, fused with stylistic influences that include progressive rock, jazz, ambient and myriad world musics" (quoting from the promo sheet). Rea...

Alex Cline, a great drummer and composer, leads a tribute to the landmark AEC album, Roscoe Mitchell composition, that features an all-star lineup:
Oliver Lake – saxophones, flute
Vinny Golia – woodwinds
Dan Clucas – cornet...

"Alex Cline continues in the spirit of his ECM release The Lamp & the Star, with this percussion-voice-violin-guitar-keyboard-bass-lineup. Drummer/percussionist Cline has worked with jazz greats Charles Lloyd, Charlie Haden, Julius Hemphill...

"Sometimes meditative, other times intensely powerful, Cloud Plate brings together four veteran improvising musicians and accomplished bandleaders, percussionist Alex Cline, vocalist Kaoru, electric koto player Miya Masaoka, and electric guitarist G.E...

"Nels Cline is a gateway drug in the best of ways. He's known as the guitar player for one of America's best bands, Wilco. His crazy performances, filled with static shrieking and string bending, have led fans to the other side of music. It's a style...

"In this collection of wiggy compositions and freewheeling improvisations, guitarist Nels Cline collaborates with innovative bassist Mark Dresser, famed jazz drummer Billy Mintz and electric harpist Zeena Parkins. Nels...

Three great players, Nels Cline on guitar, Andrea Parkins on accordion and sampler and (the amazing) Tom Rainey on drums. “Rainey was a surprise hero of this year’s FIMAV, a critical one-third of an improvisational encounter with guitarist Nels Cline...

It's like the 'Mod Squad' of guitarists: 'One Black - One White' only here it's more like 'one known as a straight ahead guy and the other known as a wildman'. You get to figure out who is who here.

Seriously, Nels is a great player and knows...

Jay Cloidt is, the Spike Jones of the Bay Area's new music scene [San Francisco Chronicle]. Kronos Quartet, Paul Dresher Ensemble, and Basso Bongo are the performers. 'Kole Kat Krush' (1989 juxtaposes music from Stravinsky, Beethoven, Eric Clapton, and...

Amidea Clotet - electric guitar and objects

"Amidea Clotet's Trasluz is the result of research into the sound and textural possibilities of the electric guitar treated as a source of sound amplification. Clotet creates spontaneous, raw and vivid soundscapes, which call for the importance of the present moment, of knowing how to listen to what surrounds us and to ourselves."

Their 1st release, from 2013.

"Dada-minded insurrectionists hellbent on dismantling various genres then re-assembling them inside out with gleeful aplomb."-The Village Voice

"...I can safely call Cloud Becomes Your Hand one of the most exciting and wonderfully strange bands I've encountered in some time."-Stereogum, "Band To Watch"

"With brilliant melodies, blippy video-game sounds, and Syd Barrett-esque lyrics, Cloud Becomes Your Hand feels like a joyful journey through a strange

"It appears there is a second 'kosmische musik' period in full bloom around the world at the moment, not so much 'kosmische' as in 'Krautrock' but instead 'cosmic.' At Kranky they have the celestial symphonies of Stars of the Lid, the guitar circle...

"The first Cloudland Canyon release for Kranky was recorded in Brooklyn, Germany and Memphis. It follows on the heels of the well-received Requiems Der Natur 2002-2004 album released on the Tee Pee label. Silver Tongued Sisyphus is a secular call to...

“Asmus Tietchens is a sound artist and composer from Hamburg, Germany. He got interested in Musique Concrete by listening to a German radio programme when he was 10 years old. In 1965, at the age of 18, Asmus started experimenting with tape loops and turned them into musical collages. Soon, the use of synthesizers was added.
In 1980 his debut album Nachtstücke was released, produced by Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream. This was soon followed by a series of albums of electronic pop music for the Sky...

"The Clusone Trio (also known as Trio Clusone and Clusone 3) was a creative, international group of skilled musicians who blended improvisation, original compositions and old jazz chestnuts into a music that's kooky and/or delicate, but always winning...

Cluster 71 is the first album by Cluster and the least known of their early clasics. It is reissued here with the original cover art in a digipack. It's been reissued a zillion times, but no matter which edition, it's a great release...

"Formed in Germany in 1971 when Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius left Conrad Schnitzler's group Kluster, Cluster can be counted among the most important protagonists of the electronic avant-garde. Some credit them with having invented ambient music, others as pioneers of synthesizer pop, while to others they are firmly embedded in the Krautrock universe. There is some truth in all of these notions. Although Cluster and "rock music" are seldom mentioned in the same breath, their early works in...