W

"After the success of “Hinterland” in 2005, the band stretched forward to show a truer picture of the band’s inner nature. Many fans were asking for the early demo they did in 2003, and these tracks were re-recorded with the full band for “Afterglow”. The strong influence of black metal can be heard both in the surprising power and aggression of some sections, as well as the structure and tonality of many of the riffs. Paradoxically, “Afterglow” was also a more dyed-in-the-wool proggy prog rock album...

The greatly awaited fourth album from Wobbler! I can't say it is a 'return to form', because all their previous ones are really good, but this one seems more in keeping with the style that blew everyone away when they first appeared on the scene.
Just like Anglagard, they take a lot of influences from the golden period of progressive rock; Genesis, Yes, Gentle Giant, ELP and blend it all into something that is simply "Wobbler" and not just a bunch of proggy parts glued together.

"I don't recall that there's ever been another album or band that has been hyped and anticipated as much at least amongst the progressive rock circles. Wobbler not only lives up but surpasses that hype on their debut Hinterland."-Ron Fuchs, prognaut.com

"Progressive rock in 2005 had gotten slick, soulless and narrow-minded. Bands were imitating bands that were imitating bands that were ... you get the idea. Wobbler was something very, very different. In keeping with the original progressive....

Third from one of the best retro-symphonic rock bands today, Wobbler emerged with their first album in the early 00s and their sound instantly gained them an international following. This new one veers a bit closer to the classic Yes sound than their past works, but its still recognizably Wobbler.

For “Rites at Dawn” it was time for a change. Wanting to up their game both musically and sonically, the band took their sweet time to hone their new material and to record things as pristinely as they..

“San Francisco-based multimedia artist, composer, and improviser Jon Leidecker makes music under the pseudonym Wobbly. He is an active member of both the seminal experimental group Negativland, and with the Thurston Moore Group.
Additional Kids, Wobbly’s third release on Hausu Mountain, is a song cycle that introduces a strain of Leidecker’s music rarely heard in his wide-ranging solo catalog: mutated pop music with vocal performances from a diverse guest list of singers appearing on nearly every...

“San Francisco-based multimedia artist, composer, and improviser Jon Leidecker makes music under the pseudonym Wobbly. He currently records and tours with seminal experimental group Negativland, and with the Thurston Moore Ensemble. Over the course of a varied musical practice that began in the mid-1980s, Wobbly has collaborated with artists including Matmos, Dieter Moebius (Cluster), Tania Chen, Fred Frith, Tim Story, Thomas Dimuzio, David Toop, Zeena Parkins, and People Like Us. Leidecker has released...

“San Francisco-based multimedia artist, composer, and improviser Jon Leidecker makes music under the pseudonym Wobbly. He's an active member of both the seminal experimental group Negativland, and the Thurston Moore Ensemble. Popular Monitress, Wobbly’s second release with Hausu Mountain, builds on the machine-randomized compositional processes that Leidecker workshopped on 2019’s Monitress. The album explodes with overlapping alien melodies, swathes of granular texture, and frenetic percussion patterns..

I first came across Erling’s name as a member of the San Francisco guitar-based group, Name, which also featured Bob Adams & Henry Kaiser, a.o. Since then, he’s concentrated on ‘modern composition and large dramatic works’, about really unusual subjects (see below) and this is his latest.

“Erling Wold is a bon vivant and a composer of large dramatic works. His new chamber opera UKSUS is ''a feverish mashup of artistic and political history, commentary on vinegar and meatballs, and non sequiturs...

"Necessary reissue of this crucial side by the greatest underground band of your lifetime. Still sounds like nothing else."-David Keenan

"Originally released on Hanson Records, American Tapes and Bulb Records in 2001. Filters circuit bent electronics, fried dub and the dystopian proto-punk of Cabaret Voltaire and Suicide through a distinctly Midwest USA sensibility. The result is a freak classic for the ages.
This release continues to establish LOWER FLOOR MUSIC as a new home for the...

"No Answer : Lower Floors is the record of 2013 you need to be most worried about. No Answer : Lower Floors is further flesh to the shadowy silhouette cast by this Michigan art abstraction unit, perenially poised on the cusp of a precipice. Wolf Eyes...

For half a century legendary scholar Christian Wolff has created a very personal musical response to John Cages challenging experiments and three of his most distinctive compositions receive inspiring performances here by a collection of San Francisco...

“These two discs reveal Christian Wolff as a composer fully exploring, in different ways, the continuum between music which is highly fragmented, embracing extended silences (composed or indeterminate), to that which is more progressive and seemingly driven, albeit taking in disarming and unconventional routes. As a body of repertoire, these works are remarkable for their freshness of musical thought and energy (John Cage considered Wolff to be the most "musical" of the experimental composers). Performer...


"Swapping out his rhythm section, Andrew Stockdale proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's the mastermind of Wolfmother on Cosmic Egg, creating a second record that is essentially a replication of the first, equally enamored with all the thick, heavy rock of the '70s, specifically Sabbath and Zeppelin, tempered with a little bit of Jack White caterwaul. All the sounds remain the same, but the songs have changed: with the occasional exception, such as the Stripes-ian salute "White Feather," Stockdale....

“WOLFMOTHER has hit the mark and obliterated it! The crunchy chords; the distortion; the somewhat muffled drums; the vocals out front: it has the ingredients that made their predecessors huge. If you're into that 60's and 70's hard rock sound that was coined by bands like Jo Jo Gunne, Spirit, Spooky Tooth, Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath (with Ozzy), and Pink Floyd, then you will love this album!”

"For their first Tzadik release Rasa Rasa members Kenny Wollesen, Dalius Naujo, Jonathon Haffner and Sean Francis Conway have arranged the ancient polyphonic vocal music of Lithuania using a variety of ensembles and the result is an entirely new...

“Time shapes our world and our concepts. From earth's erosion to patterns in nature -- fossils, stone formations, crystalline ice, glaciers, or delicate shells -- all visual images of forms show us the linear time which passed across them. Simultaneously, there is the quite personal psychological time that shapes our life and memories; it's how we perceive the progress of our consciousness. Within both, time remains an abstract term with no shape. It can only be explained as a rate and duration of...

“After many years and many electronic music albums, Norway's Erik Wøllo returns home, in a sense, on Cloud of Strings. Created on an assemblage of acoustic guitars, his 14th Projekt solo album sees Wøllo explore the instrument he first loved. It's an album of twelve melodic moods - an intimate collection showcasing a fresh perspective on Wøllo's artistic range and versatility.
With reflections of his two previous guitar-music albums - Guitar Nova (1998) and Blue Sky, Red Guitars (2004) - Wøllo...

“Infinite Moments is an hour of ambient electronic music from veteran Norwegian composer Erik Wøllo. Across nearly four decades, 40 albums encompass Erik's unique mix of layered synthesizers, melodic guitars and expansive percussion. This time he takes a different approach - there are no synthesizers! The album is performed entirely on electric guitars processed with the diffused sustain of the EBow and layered note structures of harmonizers. No rhythms, only long, vast and engaging soundscapes. Minimal...

“Following his acclaimed 2020 collaboration with American synthesist Michael Stearns, renowned Norwegian ambient / electronic artist Erik Wøllo returns with 2021's Recurrence. An intensely detailed fusion of elegant compositions and deep atmospherics, it's a gleaming sonic journey - a timeless dreamlike pilgrimage revisiting the sound and feel of past moments with an essence of eternal renewal.
Delicately evocative synthesizer atmospheres are skillfully balanced with pulsating rhythmic passages...

“Erik Wøllo's Solastalgia is a monumental two-hour 2CD of expansive, entrancing electronic music. Erik's striking, elegant vocabulary is a melodic vision of ambient electronics with lush arrangements brimming with promise. The 21 tracks display dazzling rhythmic pulses, shimmering textures and memorable ethereal lines.
This beauty is in service of a deeper story. "Solastalgia" -- a term coined by Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht -- combines the Latin word for "comfort" and the Greek root for...

BLOWOUT PRICE! The post-industrial sound artist Achim Wollscheid presents this work on the Mille Plateaux sub-label Ritornell, home of the more abstract tangents of the label's roster, with less electronica and more pure experiments in sound...


Despite our carrying his great 1st release (which we still have, hint, hint), I know you don't know who Dustin is, but that's why I am writing this now. Dustin is the latest in a long and interesting line of guitarplayers using looping and devices to...

I know you don't know who Dustin is, but that's why I am writing this now. Dustin is the latest in a long and interesting line of guitarplayers using looping and devices to create a very full sound out of solo guitar performance, traceable from Robert...

“Like Fluid World Building before it, Perpetual Morphosis presents a hybridized vision in which Wong’s previously long-held practice focused on live-looped guitar sessions is simply one element in his all-encompassing electronic productions. The album finds him further developing his affinities for digital instrumentation and complex sound design, all while positioning himself as the guitarist and vocalist at the heart of his multi-layered performances. As Dustin Wong combines his ongoing exploration of...

"Theresa Wong is a cellist, composer, vocalist and improviser based in San Francisco. Her first CD release The Unlearning is a collection of miniature songs for violin, cello and two voices inspired by the Disasters of War etchings by Francisco Goya...

"A startling, epic wash of sound in which trumpets are matched against pedal steel guitar, percussion and keyboards... a brave and entertaining set" The Guardian (4 stars)

"A superb set of traditional British songs played in a pedal steel laden early 70s West Coast style" Stewart Lee, The Times

"Poor Murdered Woman may even match Shirley Collns' landmark version" Mojo (4 stars)

"This is the best thing that has happened to British folk music in years... emancipating and...

This is a really good and completely unclassifiable Americana-based orchestral big-band work, with obvious nods to Van Dyke Parks (see below) and far beyond. I hope that some people pick this one up based on its worth, as I think this will be a tough s...

The third album by this popular modern space-rock/stoner-rock band. Lots of fun and their debut on Thrill Jockey, which should bring them even more fans!

"I became aware of San Fran's Wooden Shjips when a friend gave me a copy of Dos a year...

Excellent new instrumental fusion release on F.E.S./Laser's Edge. On this live album, Woodenhead combine their usual quartet lineup of keyboards, guitar, bass and drums with a very special addition: The Trombones From Hell, a 3-piece trombone section w...

"The new album by the Tony Woods Project - 'Lowlands' draws its inspiration from world music and in particular the indigenous melodic folk idioms of his native Britain. Tony Woods' quirky and uplifting compositions combined with outstanding...

Rich Woodson is a self-taught composer and guitarist who grew up on hard rock and heavy metal in Nashville, TN and San Antonio and Austin, TX. His major musical influences are Tim Berne, Frank Zappa, Watchtower (the 1980's Austin metal band, who invented the technical metal subgenre) and composer Charles Wuorinen.
This debut CD, performed by a crack band, comprising Rich on guitar, Aaron Stewart-tenor sax, Peter Epstein-soprano sax, Mat Fieldes-acoustic bass and John Hollenbeck-drums, is a bold and...

Woof was Tim Hodgkinson's label. This release is a pretty big deal, if only for the inclusion of the really, really great "I Do, I Do...I Don’t, I Don’t" EP by Tim and Bill Gilonis, which has been unavailable for over 20 years, was a miserable grotty pressing to begin with, and was Tim's very first post-Cow recordings and the roots of The Work. Not to mention the inclusion of Houdini, one of The Work's greatest...uh...works!

"This CD comprises all four 7” releases by the British underground....

Woof was Tim Hodgkinson's label. This release is a pretty big deal, if only for the inclusion of the really, really great "I Do, I Do...I Don’t, I Don’t" EP by Tim and Bill Gilonis, which has been unavailable for over 20 years, was a miserable grotty pressing to begin with, and was Tim's very first post-Cow recordings and the roots of The Work. Not to mention the inclusion of Houdini, one of The Work's greatest...uh...works!

"This CD comprises all four 7” releases by the British underground....

Nate Wooley trumpet / Josh Sinton bass clarinet / Matt Moran vibraphone / Eivind Opsvik double bass / Harris Eisenstadt drums

"Defying boundaries, those which state that there is a corner represented by Wynton Marsalis and an opposite corner in which Nate Wooley has marked his own name, the Nate Wooley Quintet presents us with an unexpected CD of the leader's own versions of Marsalis's music. Unexpected for some, but not for Wooley: after all, the American trumpeter became interested in jazz...

Nate Wooley, trumpet / Josh Sinton, bass clarinet / Matt Moran, vibraphone / Eivind Opsvik, double bass / Harris Eisenstadt, drums.

This is a real all-star session of young 'up 'n' comers', all of whom are leaders in their own right....

Nate Wooley, trumpet / Josh Sinton, bass clarinet and baritone saxophone / Matt Moran, vibraphone / Eivind Opsvik, double bass / Dan Peck, tuba / Harris Eisenstadt, drums.

"Nate Wooley isn’t only a great trumpeter, one of the very best around....

Mary Halvorson Guitar
Susan Alcorn Pedal Steel Guitar
Ryan Sawyer Drums
Mat Maneri Viola, Track 2
Trevor Dunn Electric Bass, Track 4
Nate Wooley Trumpet and Amplifier, Compositions

The features the same musicians Nate’s hugely impressive and glacially great ‘Columbia Icefield’ album, with a few guest spots added. ‘Columbia Icefield plus’?

“This album is dedicated to those who recognize living as a heroic act: the occupiers of sunup barstools; the cubicle-plan

“This latest project Battle Pieces combines Wooley's deft touch at extended technique with his composing skills for like players. Recorded live at Anthony Braxton's Tricentric Foundation in 2014, Wooley brings together saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock (Anti-House, Paradoxical Frog, Mary Halvorson Septet), vibraphonist Matt Moran (Claudia Quintet, Slavic Soul Party, Dan Levin), and pianist Sylvie Courvoisier (Erik Friedlander Trio, Herb Robertson Quintet, and duo with Mark Feldman).
The written music and...

“Commissioned by Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Foundation, trumpeter Nate Wooley developed a modular compositional structure of small melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, conceptual, textural, and timbral fragments, allowing Ingrid Laubrock (sax), Sylvie Courvoisier (piano), and Matt Moran (Vibes) exceptional freedom in improvisation.
Wooley starts of with a fine little melody in the first piece, then Moran comes along, and a few moments later Courvoisier adds some tones to it. It all starts very calm and...

Nate Wooley – trumpet
Ingrid Laubrock – saxophones
Sylvie Courvoisior – piano
Matt Moran – vibraphone
“Battle Pieces 4, recorded live at Brooklyn’s Roulette Intermedium in 2018 is the culmination of Wooley’s set of compositions for quartet. The group, after four years of twisting and torturing Wooley’s ever-expanding set of micro-compositions into new and ever-interesting forms, perform an evening length set that moves through the breadth of their collective history as an ensemble.”

Nate Wooley trumpet
Chris Pitsiokos alto saxophone
Brandon Lopez bass
Dré Hocevar drums

"We can say without exaggeration that the new project by Nate Wooley introduces in the so-called “free jazz” format a system that few times – if ever – we encountered with such a relevance for the musical results since the harmolodic process proposed by Ornette Coleman. And the always surprising trumpeter is very much aware of the ground breaking possibilities of this band with the upcoming New

"Brilliant second album from Nate Wooley's Seven Storey Mountain project. David Grubbs and Paul Lytton have been replaced by Chris Corsano (Sunburned, Bjork, Six Organs et. al) and C. Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core)."

"This second recording of...

When Henry Cow fell apart in the summer of 1978, the main players in the band dispersed. Fred Frith left England to settle in NYC for a good number of years, getting involved the then just beginning to evolve 'downtown' sound, recording three excellent and high-profile albums for Ralph Records, forming first Massacre and then Skeleton Crew. Chris Cutler formed the Art Bears and also was an important member of Cassiber. Lindsay Cooper and Georgie Born did a lot of musical improvising and John Greaves had...

This is a really great album, although I didn’t appreciate it as much when it was first released, because I was a TOTAL fan of Slow Crimes by The Work, and only half that band appears here.
Having said that, as time has gone on, I’ve grown more and more to be aware of what a splendid performance is captured here AND ALSO to appreciate what a utterly slaying performance Chris gives on drums!
And now with the CD issue of this, Udi made what I always thought of a not very good live recording sound...

When Henry Cow fell apart in the summer of 1978, the main players in the band dispersed. Fred Frith left England to settle in NYC for a good number of years, getting involved the then just beginning to evolve 'downtown' sound, recording three excellent and high-profile albums for Ralph Records, forming first Massacre and then Skeleton Crew. Chris Cutler formed the Art Bears and also was an important member of Cassiber. Lindsay Cooper and Georgie Born did a lot of musical improvising and John Greaves had...

Here's something I *never* thought I would see; an album of 'new' (new as in unheard) material by The Work! If you don’t know The Work, they were formed by Tim Hodgkinson after Henry Cow and they are one of the greatest ‘difficult rock music’ bands of the 80s and one of the least heralded.

"The 4th World is the band's long-lost, never before issued, very last album, from 1994. Succeeding See by some two years, it shares that album's aesthetics and approach -- an economy of means, and superior...

In 1983, when information on the ground was much harder to come by and I was a huge fan of The Work, this noisy, lo-fi, hissy and mostly strange collage of work by The Work was a very special thing.

“Special 2CD edition of only 500 copies made featuring the whole C90 album for the first time re-issued, remastered from the original 1982 tape. Comes in a 6 panel digi case + 2 page booklet.
Originally released as a C90 cassette in 1983, the music on this double CD uses low-fi recordings a...

Dave Morecroft – Keyboards / Vocals
Ben Powling – Saxophones
Arthur O’Hara – Bass / Vocals
Luke Reddin-Williams – Drums / Percussion
+
Kieran McLeod – Trombone (tracks 2,6,8,9)

“Over the course of its previous four albums, UK punk-jazz outfit WorldService Project carried its keen-edged, window-rattling irreverence across the globe, casting an eviscerating glance inward while spreading its message of chaotic compassion to the scattered remnants of the former British...