Stunning document of intense, body-focused saxophone improvisations from one of the hardest-killing reed titans of the post-Noise age. Presented in beautiful style by this new Lithuanian free jazz imprint, The Vilnius Implosion comes in an edition of 500 copies, with high quality vinyl and a 45rpm playing speed ensuring maximum audio fidelity. Using baritone and slide saxophones as well as alto fluteophone, Gustafsson takes the instrument apart, breaking the logic of their construction down to the point that they sound like ‘mere’ voice amplification devices, shooting darts of breath through the valves and cracking up into the kind of emotionally-wounded overtone destruction that defines all of the best solo Brotzmann/FMP/Euro art-threat sides. A fantastic document of extreme solo improvisation and a great way to inaugurate a major new free jazz vinyl imprint. Recommended.

Alongside David S Ware’s quartet and Charles Gayle’s Parker/Ali trio, Joe McPhee’s Trio X are one of the great contemporary small groups in free jazz. This beautifully presented set – with both discs cut to play at 45rpm for maximum fidelity – documents McPhee, bassist Dominic Duval and drummer Jay Rosen at an intuitive peak, recorded live in Vilnius in 2006. The set is divided between originals, inspired re-settings (“My Funny Valentine” into Edwin Star’s “War”) and readings of material by Ornette Coleman (an exquisite “Lonely Woman”, “Law Years”), Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk and Dvorak (a starkly beautiful reading of the first movement from Symphony #9 that connects Ayler-ised jazz to European folk/orchestral traditions). McPhee’s playing is gorgeous, with bold, fluid lines bisecting Duval’s uncanny, vocalized bass work and Rosen’s precise feel for time and space. This is a great free jazz record, one with a huge umbilical to the post-Coltrane tradition but with two fists pointing towards the future. Another excellent release from this new label. Highly recommended.

Stellar set of free jazz, recorded live in Paris in 2007 from a group with a bunch of heavy-hitters. Nu Band features trumpeter Roy Campbell Jr (Peter Brotzmann’s Die Like A Dog/Other Dimensions In Music et al), the great saxophonist/clarinettist Mark Whitecage (who has played with Braxton, Joe McPhee, William Parker et al), bassist Joe Fonda and drummer Lou Grassi. Perfectly balanced between molten fire music and tough new thing stylings. Edition of 300 copies. 

Fantastic trio set led by the enigmatic west coast reedist Oluyemi Thomas, here on bass clarinet, flute, soprano and musette and featuring the last ever recorded appearance of the late bassist and Revolutionary Ensemble member/Cecil Taylor collaborator Sirone as well as percussionist Michael Wimberly. Thomas has played with William Parker, Alan Silva, Charles Gayle, Henry Grimes, Sunny Murray and Joe McPhee. Under the spiritual guidance of Eric Dolphy he has dedicated himself to the bass clarinet and it’s an instrument he can really roar on, moving from plaintive ritualistic cries and earth tones through the kind of high alien tongue of post-Ayler thinkers like Gayle and Brotzmann. His playing here is truly remarkable, navigating the speed-of-thought exchanges between Sirone and Wimberly with all of the brain muscle of your favourite wall-destroyer while mixing it up with military tattoos, forlorn testifying and droning, singing blues. Edition of 300 copies, heavyweight vinyl, recommended.

Drummer William Hooker has been a massive presence on the fringes of the New York free jazz scene for several decades, announcing himself via a monster private press side, 1977’s Is Eternal Life that featured both David Murray and David S. Ware, and since then going on to forge links with the downtown avant rock scene through releases on Ecstatic Peace and collaborations with Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Christian Marclay, Zeena Parkins, Jim O’Rourke et al. This is his first release in a while and it’s a monster, a series of live duets with the late saxophonist Thomas Chapin recorded in NYC in 1992. Hooker has a tough, no-frills style and his obsessive hypnotic/ritual style approach pushes Chapin to the limits, with the two of them caught up in hurricane dynamics and ululating polyrhythmic/polyphonic exchanges where the personalities blur into one tremendous vibrating love cry, with Chapin generating impossibly dense note constructs that Hooker juggles between time signatures. Chapin passed away in 1998 at the age of only 40 from Leukemia but this is a startling memorial for a great free spirit and a short-lived but insanely dynamic creative duo. Edition of 500 copies with gatefold sleeve and liners from Hooker and Bruce Gallanter. 

Stunning previously unreleased document from the ferment of the New York loft era free jazz scene, with legendary violinist Billy Bang’s first group as leader captured live on 29^th May 1977 at A Day In Solidarity With Soweto: A Fund-Raiser, Harlem Fight-Back, 1 East 125^th Street, New York. The group is a remarkable ensemble, not least for the presence of the amazing, weeping saxophone tone of Bilal Abdur Rahman aka Clive Hunter who had been a member of a radical black separatist group alongside Bang and who had been wounded and arrested during a shoot-out at a botched bank job and ended up doing time in Attica where he changed his name and converted to Islam. The group also features William Parker on bass and Rashid Bakr on drums and the set opens with an astounding piece of music by Parker with Bang reading a poem dedicated to Albert Ayler that namechecks virtually every key player in underground fire music before Bang’s violin and Rahman’s saxophone kick into a wild, bluesy, radically ‘out’ hymn to the titans of the eternal now. The recording quality is fantastic and it has all of the raw, raggedy appeal of classic private press sides on Jihad or Ak-Ba. A major excavation that will appeal to anyone who digs the post-Ayler radical Wildman style of subterranean New York. Limited edition of 500 copies. Highly recommended! 

Excellent live set, stunningly rendered, from the trio of saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, bassist Barry Guy and drummer Raymond Strid. Tarfala formed in 1992 after a meeting at the Solo-92 Festival in Sweden. There have been two CDs so far on the Maya Recordings label but this deluxe 2xLP gatefold set with a bonus 7” and a large glossy booklet represents their first vinyl outing. This is classic high-energy free jazz, with Guy’s playing serving to drill them an elemental foundation deep into the earth, anchoring furious string navigations with massively heavy bottom end bombs that Strid knocks around all over the place, shepherding them into weird time fluxes that somehow combine static detail with constant movement. Gustafsson is, of course, one of the premier deconstructive thinkers on the saxophone but here his playing feels more focussed on classic free jazz grace and power, matching Peter Brotzmann in terms of lyrical fury and radical invention. Edition of 600 copies. Recommended. 

Stellar live recording from one of the greatest living free jazz saxophonists, Joe McPhee, and percussionist Michael Zerang. The range of McPhee’s thought at this point is fairly staggering, exposing himself to playing situations that range from the Chicago underground through Chris Corsano, Peter Brotzmann’s big band and LAFMS fugitives Smegma. But then McPhee has always been a radical thinker, incorporating tapes and electronics early on as part of his Survival Unit. Indeed, I would say that he has never sounded better, bucking the trend for fire musicians to tame the flames as they age and pushing himself headlong into new situations that keep his thinking and playing sharp. Which brings us to this gorgeous new LP from a label that has established itself as one of the premier free jazz imprints, Lithuania’s NoBusiness Records. Recorded live in New Orleans, with titles and themes that reference the city, McPhee’s playing here is so lucid, so beautifully ‘out’, that at points it feels like a compendium of alla the aspects of the saxophonist’s personality that have illuminated his back catalogue reduced to the space of a single set. Zerang gives him plenty of room to spread out, whether playing spare rhythmic tattoos beneath his beautiful pocket trumpet work or chasing the trails of his obsessively raging saxophone. It’s a fucking doozer, is what I’m trying to say. Highly recommended.

Stellar live recording from one of the greatest living free jazz saxophonists, Joe McPhee, and percussionist Michael Zerang. The range of McPhee’s thought at this point is fairly staggering, exposing himself to playing situations that range from the Chicago underground through Chris Corsano, Peter Brotzmann’s big band and LAFMS fugitives Smegma. But then McPhee has always been a radical thinker, incorporating tapes and electronics early on as part of his Survival Unit. Indeed, I would say that he has never sounded better, bucking the trend for fire musicians to tame the flames as they age and pushing himself headlong into new situations that keep his thinking and playing sharp. Which brings us to this gorgeous new LP from a label that has established itself as one of the premier free jazz imprints, Lithuania’s NoBusiness Records. Recorded live in New Orleans, with titles and themes that reference the city, McPhee’s playing here is so lucid, so beautifully ‘out’, that at points it feels like a compendium of alla the aspects of the saxophonist’s personality that have illuminated his back catalogue reduced to the space of a single set. Zerang gives him plenty of room to spread out, whether playing spare rhythmic tattoos beneath his beautiful pocket trumpet work or chasing the trails of his obsessively raging saxophone. It’s a fucking doozer, is what I’m trying to say. Edition of 300 copies. Highly recommended. 

Massively potent set from two world-beating sound-as-thought proponents, both of whom the world lost far too early. Saxophonist Julius Hemphill was a co-founder of St Louis’ Black Artists’ Group – BAG – and his early recordings, Dogon A.D., Coon Bid’ness et al remain singular and defiantly idiosyncratic explorations of the potential of the saxophone. Kowald is, of course, one of the great European free bassists so this beautifully produced and previously unreleased archival set, recorded in Peter Brotzmann’s home town of Wuppertal in 1987, is nothing short of a goddamn treat. The set is split into three sections, with solo spots from Hemphill and Kowald and a final duo session. Kowald’s solo work is always spell-binding and as a showcase for the dazzling array of techniques and approaches he brings to his instrument it’s a treat. Hemphill always sounds great solo, with a feel for phantom architecture that means all of his improvisations feel implicitly directed. The duo sets are the real meat though, with Hemphill’s high, blues-inflected voice given an umbilical to earth tones and smears of drone through Kowald’s deep, propulsive bass work. Edition of 500 copies. Recommended. 

Massively potent set from two world-beating sound-as-thought proponents, both of whom the world lost far too early. Saxophonist Julius Hemphill was a co-founder of St Louis’ Black Artists’ Group – BAG – and his early recordings, Dogon A.D., Coon Bid’ness et al remain singular and defiantly idiosyncratic explorations of the potential of the saxophone. Kowald is, of course, one of the great European free bassists so this beautifully produced and previously unreleased archival set, recorded in Peter Brotzmann’s home town of Wuppertal in 1987, is nothing short of a goddamn treat. The set is split into three sections, with solo spots from Hemphill and Kowald and a final duo session. Kowald’s solo work is always spell-binding and as a showcase for the dazzling array of techniques and approaches he brings to his instrument it’s a treat. Hemphill always sounds great solo, with a feel for phantom architecture that means all of his improvisations feel implicitly directed. The duo sets are the real meat though, with Hemphill’s high, blues-inflected voice given an umbilical to earth tones and smears of drone through Kowald’s deep, propulsive bass work. Recommended.