Don Cherry meets the Groupe de Recherches Musicales!
Recorded in 1977 at the Paris MIX festival organised by INA grm and hosted by François Bayle, this is a terrific, deeply congruent, soulful encounter.
Cherry plays pocket trumpet extensively and beautifully (also n’goni and whistles), with characteristically unguarded, elemental sublimity; Nana Vasconcelos is dazzlingly, hypnotically grooving. Electro-acoustic pioneer Jean Schwarz — a collaborator of Jean-Luc Godard — contributes elegant tape-work, synths, and treatments; his long-time associates Michel Portal and JF Jenny-Clark are highly accomplished European jazz legends. (Feted recently by Souffle Continu, the clarinettist is a mainstay of the Jef Gilson set-up, who recorded with Serge Gainsbourg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Sunny Murray; the bassist played on DC’s 1965 Blue Note classic Symphony For Improvisers… not to mention Brigitte Fontaine’s Comme à la Radio).
Remastered from the original master tapes; out here for the first time.
It’s a must.

Bunny Lee Boss Sounds, 1969-70. Musical aggro from hornsmen Roland Alphonso, Tommy McCook, Lester Sterling and co, plus foundational deejaying by D Tony Lee, U Roy, and Jeff Barnes, and nuff organ. Sleeve notes by Noel Hawks.

Songs for dancing, about love and heartache, conflict, and spirituality, over the rolling lilt of the ekonting, a three-stringed gourd lute played by Jola people in Gambia and the Casamance region of Senegal.

Siggy was the piano accompanist of Archie Sheep over several decades; he recorded with Dizzy Reece and Hal Singer.
Here is his key LP as leader, in 1971 — with bassist Gus Nemeth and percussionist Stu Martin — edging from post-Trane into free jazz, with an ear for the contemporary electroacoustic music of Xenakis, Berio and co.

Janneau contributed to François Tusques’ 1965 landmark Free Jazz sessions. He was a stalwart of Jef Gilson’s big band in the years leading up to this first album as leader in 1975, with Jenny-Clark on bass and percussions, Bernard Lubat on drums, and Michel Grailler from Magma on spaced-out synths. The compositions are all FJ originals: check the monumental Droit d’Asile, the spooky Theme For An Unknown Island, and the homage Mr J.C. For Ever.

Upful, late-eighties singjaying, with nuff namechecks and squiddly diddlies, over a crisp, bustling rhythm.

Stark, powerful singjaying over tough, livewire digi; produced in Jamaica by Delroy Francis for his Claypot imprint, and originally released in 1987.
These are the original mixes, newly transferred from the master tapes.

Gritty sing-jay reportage, originally released in 1987 on a Claypot 12”, back-to-back with Terrorists. Produced in JA by Delroy Francis, more widely known nowadays as the guvnor of the Park Heights label and record shop in Brooklyn.

This stylish, devoted, two-hundred-plus-page book is based around a deep, fascinating interview, covering the work in detail, but with naturalness and directness; also Radigue’s life, milieux, aesthetics and methods, politics, and so on. There are numerous choice photos; a few precious sketches, flyers and diagrams. The oeuvre is listed, with commentaries. All texts are in both English and French, beginning with her prose poem The Mysterious Power of the Infinitesimal. Pretty much indispensable, if you’re at all interested.

‘Eliane Radigue and I decided to resume our conversation and come up with this expanded second edition of the book. Much had happened since the first edition that deserved to be explored in more depth, in particular the development of the Occam Ocean cycle. But I also took the opportunity to ask her questions about her earlier work that had not been addressed previously. The first four parts of this new edition remain unchanged, but they are now followed by an epilogue. The lists of works and publications have also been updated and extended’ (Julia Eckhardt, December 2023).