Coming after Nothin To Look At Just A Record, with its densely layered trombones, this is Niblock’s second, rarest LP, from 1984: a collaboration with Joseph Celli (who himself had worked with Cage, Oliveros and Ornette), playing oboe and English horn.
Niblock creates seamless, ringing drones by skilfully cutting all Celli’s breaths and pauses. Play it loud, he says, for its viscerality, and to get its ringing overtones rolling around your room.

‘Twelve frenetic bursts of scrapyard detournement, meticulously stitched together with dubbed-out vocals and disjointed drum machines, at the limits of bedroom electronica and DIY. Originally released in 1982 on his own Record Sluts label, in a single run of five hundred copies. Recommended to fans of Suicide, 20 Jazz Funk Greats and early Cabaret Voltaire.’

Kicks off with the rollicking samba Soy Califa; then a ravishing, bittersweet ballad.
Key Dexter.
Recorded the same week as Go!, with the same crew, including Sonny Clark on top form throughout.
Don’t miss Don’t Explain.
In the Blue Note 80 Vinyl series.

Fourth and last of the classic quintet albums with Shorter, Hancock, Carter and Williams. Mostly written by Herbie and Wayne Shorter — a valediction to hard bop, without the old-school machismo.
LP from Music On Vinyl.

A true lost classic of jazz; heart-stopping turns on baritone saxophone.
‘Chaloff’s masterpiece is both vigorous and moving… Thanks For The Memory is overpoweringly beautiful as Chaloff creates a series of melodic variations which match the improviser’s ideal of fashioning an entirely new song. Stairway To The Stars is almost as fine… This important session has retained all its power’ (The Penguin Guide To Jazz On CD).
Killer band, too — Sonny Clark, Philly Joe Jones, and Leroy Vinnegar.

With bassist Roberto Miranda and drummer Sonship in 1981.
Featuring a tremendous, side-long reading of Dark Tree.

‘Classic Vinyl’ series.

Available on vinyl for the first time in forty years, Horace Tapscott’s burning, spiritualised 1978 set is a masterpiece of the Los Angeles jazz underground.
It’s drawn from two studio sessions in April 1978, one at Hollywood Sage and Sound, one at United Western. The latter session added a string section, which can be heard on the moody Cal Massey composition Nakatini Suite and Jesse Sharps’ swinging modal trip Peyote Song No. III, with its swirling soprano solo. In keeping with the communal nature of the Arkestra, the other two compositions, The Call and Quagmire Manor at Five A.M. are also by Arkestra members. But at the centre of the music is the builder of the Ark, the visionary whose original call to action started a movement whose legacy continues to this day — Horace Tapscott.
180g audiophile vinyl in a painstakingly reproduced sleeve.
Heed The Call!

‘A playful, joyous album in which Hancock clearly had a great time, this music was composed for the pilot of a children’s TV show, redirecting the post-bop of his five-year stint with Miles towards new r&b and funk styles. Flying high with three horn players — Joe Henderson, Garrett Brown and Johnny Coles — alongside Hancock’s soaring Fender Rhodes, the group could swing freely on a track like the rousing Fat Mama and emote precisely on the subtle Tell Me A Bedtime Story.’