CD

Paal Nilssen-Love

2010

Frode Gjerstad Trio

2015

"Frode again this time with different long time fellow players the excellent drummer Paal Nilseen Love and bassist Jon Rune Strom Recorded on tour in Japan in Miyazaki Three great tracks from masters of the art form."

Getatchew Mekuria & The Ex & Guests

2006

"Moa Anbessa is a great introduction to Mekurya for rock fans. The Ex doesn’t cut their intensity a bit – heck, they need it all to keep up with Mekurya, still going strong in his seventies. This is a powerful, rocking record that will thrill even listeners who’ve never bought a “world music” album in their lives. -Steve Holtje, The Big Takeover "

Williams/Håker Flaten/Daisy

2013

""Moments Form" does not need time to warm up, it just starts -- a solid stream of invention and drive. Could one expect anything less from free jazz stalwarts, Mars Williams, Tim Daisy and Ingebrigt Haker Flaten? All are experienced and hard hitting improvisors and this consistently engaging album certainly, at the very least, solidifies this perception. —Paul Acquaro, Free Jazz Blog"

Ken Vandermark

2016

"Each disc on this collection has its own distinct feel, presenting six individual journeys within the whole. All of the musicians are acutely aware of their surroundings, and the inspiration that they drew from one another was palpable (Tim Niland, Music and More)"

Ken Vandermark

2017

"Both discs of this installment of Momentum offer exciting developments in Vandermark’s discography. Incorporating electronics, composed themes, and free form sections, the arrangements are edgy and captivating throughout. The double disc set contains extensive liner notes by the musician and offers an excellent documentation of his continuing musical evolution." -Paul Acquaro "Free Jazz Blog"

Ken Vandermark

2019

"A collection of duo recordings featuring Ken Vandermark in collaboration with internationally renowned, and critically acclaimed, musicians: Kris Davis, Hamid Drake, Paul Lytton, Ikue Mori, and William Parker. The material is documented on 5 CDs and was recorded during performances at Vandermark’s second Stone residency in New York City during January of 2018, and at Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago. "

The Thing

2011

"At this juncture The Thing and its members need little by way of introduction. Individually their output plots a course through much of the territories mapped by contemporary improvised music, shines a light on its more outré reaches, and stretches the wallets of even the most committed listener. Moreover, seeing any of their names affiliated with a project has become a seal of quality, much as the FMP logo did a generation prior."

FME

2006

"A double-disc set that documents the live efforts of the Free Music Ensemble – a power trio featuring Ken Vandermark on reeds, Nat McBride on bass, and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums! One CD here features a 2005 Boston show, and the other includes a concert the next day, recorded up in Montreal presenting several concepts, each dedicated to a film legend (Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, Sergio Leone, Buster Keaton, etc)."

Ab Baars & Joost Buis

2020

"Featuring adaptations of compositions by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn."

Extra Large Unit

2018

"When writing music, I search for extremes, pushing boundaries: physical, dynamic, instrumental limitations, if any, how fast and how slow can one play, how loud and how quiet. I search for unusual ways of thinking. I want to give the musicians trust and have them take initiative and to feel the responsibility of what it is to be an individual player in a group context. -Paal Nilssen-Love"

The Young Mothers

2018

"“Then Young Mothers roared out of the gate with fierce, jarring visceral power. Theirs is a dense, multi-layered sound where Ivesian contrapuntal lines often divide the ensemble into competing units -- How fortunate 30 or so of us were that they docked in Deep Ellum last night. I'll be anxiously awaiting their return.” -Ken Shimamoto "

Claudio F Baroni

2018

""Motum" means motion, and this is a central theme in the 3 pieces by composer Claudio F Baroni on this album. The concept is central to Baroni's work, and is explored musically and formally in his layered, dynamic, sophisticated style. The breathtaking pieces are taking the listener on a meandering path, starting from the origin of sound. Motum is Baroni's second collaboration with Unsounds. With liner notes by Samuel Vriezen."

The Ex

1995

"The Ex is still growing, maturing, learning and blowing most other bands off the stage. They have a devastating sense of rhythm and a far-reaching lyrical intelligence." "Their most urgent, powerful and exciting release to date. Staggeringly beautiful." "This time they pull up their wall of sound out of pieces of rock, folk and jazz... The Ex got the blues."

Tim Daisy

2017

"Music For Lying Still is Chicago based composer and percussionist Tim Daisy's latest solo release. Further developing methods and ideas explored by his two previous solo efforts: 'Relucent: music for marimba, radios and turntables' (relay 012), and 'Red Nation 1' (relay 018), MFLS is the first to utilize a multi-track, multi-layered recording process to develop and shape the composition. All the sound making devices were recorded separately and then assembled and edited into one continuous, twenty-five-minute composition. Music for Lying Still is the first in a set of three releases using the studio as an integral component of the music making process. -multi-layered, mystic metaphoric, ambient, experimental low-fi gamelan drone music for people who like to lie still. "

Rara Avis

2013

"Certainly you can tell when Vandermark is playing but you can feel the equality in the contributions. They all have a great instinct to let the silences ring and yet never let a moment get wasted. One of my favorite listens so far this year."

Joe Morris, John Voigt, Tom Plsek

2008

"As with most engaging music, so much informs every moment of MVP LSD that any overarching description is futile. Each performer has a large timbral pallet, but more conventional modes of expression are also plentiful. Sample Morris's beautifully pantonal musings on "Separate Blue X" or Plsek's pointilistic punctuations on "Index Card no. 1." There is dialogue a-plenty, but the larger picture is of a trio, the three musicians often seeming to breathe as one as they explore these rich and multivalent compositional landscapes. -Mark Medwin "Dusted" 2009"

Magda Mayas & Chrstine Abdelnour

2012

"The fascinating aspect is that despite the succession of a myriad of sounds, their interaction also offers an interesting dynamic movement, with changing scenes and evolving levels of intensity. Fragile, ethereal, intense and beautiful. A great listening experience for music lovers with open ears. -Stef, Free Jazz Blog"

Joe McPhee Survival Unit II with Clifford Thornton

2006

"Without question, Joe McPhee is an American national treasure, and this recording offers proof that the idiosyncratic free jazz icon been one for over thirty years now. This disc documents a radio broadcast from at a time when the US was undergoing political and cultural upheavals, and the music is both reflective of such a time and the product of a proudly singular musical intelligence. The three announcements which were part of the original recording amount to just 1:43 out of a total playing time of almost 79 minutes. -Nic Jones, All About Jazz"

Joe McPhee

2018

"It's been nearly five decades since Joe McPhee assembled a group of musicians to perform the weekend concerts that would become Nation Time, his second LP. It was December 1970, thirty-one-year-old McPhee was inspired by Amiri Baraka's poem 'It's Nation Time,' and the students at Vassar College didn't know what hit them. 'What time is it?' shouted McPhee. 'Come on, you can do better than that. What time is it?!!' The music on Nation Time came out of a fertile, but little-known creative jazz scene in Poughkeepsie, New York, McPhee's home base. Two bands were deployed, one with a funky free foundation featuring guitar and organ, the other consisting of a more standard jazz formation, with two drummers and the brilliant Mike Kull at the piano. Across the concert and the next afternoon's audience-less recording session, the band was ignited by McPhee's passion and his gorgeous post-Coltrane / post-Pharoah tenor. On 'Shakey Jake,' they hit a James Brown groove filtered through Archie Shepp, while the sidelong title track is as searching and poignant today as it was during its heyday. Originally released in 1971 on CjR, an imprint started expressly to document McPhee's work, Nation Time has a sense of urgency and inspiration. Additional material from those December days would later appear on Black Magic Man, Hat Hut's first release. In fact, the first four records on this seminal Swiss label all featured McPhee. Nation Time was largely unknown a quarter century or so later, when it was first issued on CD through the Unheard Music Series. On Corbett vs. Dempsey, we reissued the album along with all known tapes leading up to and around it as a CD box set, but the standalone LP has remained incredibly rare. In preparing to reissue the CD on its own, a new, previously-unknown tape was discovered with three tracks recorded at the original concert in 1970. These include an intense version of Coltrane's "Naima," all of them feature pianist Kull, and none have been issued before this. Now is the time for a new generation of freaks to lose their shit when settling into the cushy beat of 'Shakey Jake' and answering the call with the only appropriate response: It's NATION TIME! credits "