Digital

The Vandermark 5

1999

"Using American jazzmen for their spiritual inspiration and the European model of free jazz improv, Vandermark and company have come up with something entirely their own: a solid, gritty, soulful funk and squall band who holds within their collective grasp the souls of Sun Ra, Steve Lacy, Albert Ayler, and James Brown's JBs."

Mats Gustafsson & Paal Nilssen-Love

2013

"It is a short EP, but the quality of the playing, and the interaction between both musicians is among the best you can find - powerful and deeply emotional at the same time. Great stuff."

The Vandermark 5

1997

The Ex

2005

"As important as politics are to the story of the Ex, though, there's an impressive musical progression on the disc as well. The early songs are brittle, nominally funky punk tunes with the occasional lead guitar phrase and arid production. -Joe Tangari, Pitchfork"

Ken Vandermark

2015

"Site Specific is a neat entry in the Ken Vandermark oeuvre: a minimalistic, beautifully bound book packed with two CDs capturing live solo field performances in '14 and '15, showcasing Vandermark's photographs taken as he has toured the world. Time and place take a back seat to imagery, textures and emerging themes (Paul Acquaro, The Free Jazz Collective)"

Joe McPhee, Damon Smith, Alvin Fielder

2017

"Recorded at the venerable Roulette venue in New York City it’s a free jazz conclave at once in the tradition and transcendent of the same in the vibrant gathering of passion and skill each player brings to the stage. McPhee further reveals the lineage in written form through a poem penned to John Coltrane and James Baldwin printed on the gate-fold sleeve. The six situations vary dramatically in duration and design. Inspired by a series of artworks by Dan Flavin, they find the players planting common ground from the jump. -Derek Taylor, Dusted Magazine"

Ballister

2017

"SLAG is a triumphant recording on many levels. It can exhaust you with its energy jazz or lull you into submission with its minutiae. Either way, there is something overwhelmingly satisfying about being beaten about the head by this trio. -Mark Corroto, All About Jazz"

Offonoff

2009

"Slap and Tickle was recorded at the Kongsberg Jazzfestival in Norway (so maybe they are playing jazz) in 2007: a heavy half hour followed by 15 minutes of noise funk that gets dangerously close to no wave. But as much as they might open the throttle, they never lose control and never fall into aimless pounding. The band is tastefully fluid in its workings, sometimes allowing itself to become jagged guitar with rhythm section, other times shooting and ricocheting more independently. It’s a riotous ride."

Ab Baars Trio

2014

"While making readers aware that the Ab Baars trio - whose line-up has Wilbert de Joode's double bass and Martin van Duynhoven's drums appearing alongside the leader's tenor sax, clarinet, and shakuhachi - started in 1990, Slate Blue's liner notes implicitly invite the listener to measure the progress made by this trio, also its unvarying distance from the "landscape". -Beppe Colli"

Mats Gustafsson

2005

""The Slide Saxophone - the latest sensation in the musical field - if you can sing a melody you can play this instrument... Orchestra leaders and musicians who are in the close touch with the public taste in music say that the slide saxophone will be used as a solo instrument supported by the regular saxophone in the most up-to-date orchestras before long..." (1922)"

Slugfield

2012

"trio consisting of Lasse Marhaug, Paal Nilssen-Love and M. S. K. Ratkje. Noise and drums. Started as a band because the band members were organising the all Ears festival in Oslo, and we played for every programme release."

Baars Henneman Mengelberg

2009

""And Mengelberg, the patient, pensive wit, picks his moments to enter, ruminates on the voicings of his chords so that each conveys a different shade of feeling, adding a touch of jazz here or late Romanticism there. Quite often, he is the tonal anchor of the improvisations, while Henneman and Baars daub color and asymmetric lines around him. The contrasts are stark, even surreal at times, but there’s always a sense that they are walking together arm in arm through this unusual musical landscape." -Ed Hazell"

Ab Baars, Ig Henneman, Misha Mengelberg

2016

""And Mengelberg, the patient, pensive wit, picks his moments to enter, ruminates on the voicings of his chords so that each conveys a different shade of feeling, adding a touch of jazz here or late Romanticism there. Quite often, he is the tonal anchor of the improvisations, while Henneman and Baars daub color and asymmetric lines around him. The contrasts are stark, even surreal at times, but there’s always a sense that they are walking together arm in arm through this unusual musical landscape." -Ed Hazell"

Susana Gartmayer / Christof Kurzmann

2020

Brandon Lopez

2017

""Young bassist Brandon Lopez has become a force on New York’s improvised-music scene these past few years, in large part due to his formidable power. The recent self-released solo album Smoked Sunshine Vitriol Spits is a testament to his strength—his oversize instrument can sound like a toy in his hands, and the way he wields and manhandles it in a live setting (e.g., his performance here last fall as a member of Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones) makes it look like one too." - Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader"

Hairy Bones

2012

"The label information says that this “documented concert was voted by Portuguese critics as the last year's very best”. Yes, it is purgatory but I always feel purified after listening, too. Play really loud!"

Entracte

2019

"This is complex composed music delivered with the passion of free playing, never losing control, but delivering a satisfying punch. The recording was made for the lucky audience of the Artacts Festival for Jazz and Improvised Music in Austria in, 2018. -Paul Acquaro, Free Jazz Blog"

Vandermark Quartet

1994

Peter Brötzmann

2012

"The rhythm section is thunderous in general with Nilssen-Love providing polyrhythmic barrage fire to Brötzmann’s assaults. It is a vortex of sounds – some shrieking, others almost torn, spat, even puked – owing credits both to hardcore and to Dadaistic sound poems, sharing their free rhythms, their devoted declamation and their rejection of conventional form and content. Trio Roma is a supremely passionate and committed group. -Martin Schray, Free Jazz Blog"

Joe Morris

2015

"Live recordings from guitarist Joe Morris, performing solo at Bimhuis in Amsterdam in two Octobers from 2013 to 2014, showing remarkable technical and creative skills while captivating his audience with accessible progressions and story-telling; masterful!"