In stock
LP
Okkyung LEE / Jérôme NOETINGER / Nadia RATSIMANDRESY
“Two Duos”
“Two Duos” is pressed from cellist Okkyung Lee’s most recent OTO Residency; the first side a duo with Jérôme Noetinger on Revox B77 and the second with Nadia Ratsimandresy on ondes Martenot. Cut together, the two meetings seem to raise three cellos in the search for expressive voice: the cello, it’s magnetic reproduction, and the dual controls of the machine invented to expand on its musical qualities.
On the A side Noetinger’s opening tape hiss establishes a current; an electrical partner who gives Lee room to slide across and stretch out. Progressively the cello is returned, duplicated and manipulated with increased velocity and distortion. Noetinger draws out the full extent of Lee’s extended technique; rewinding strands of Lee's horse hair and transmuting her percussive attacks into shuddering echos, before letting his own concrete interjections spin the duo's sonic tussle into an almost romantic daydream.
On side B the ondes (invented by French cellist and wartime radio operator Maurice Eugene Louis Martenot and so loved by Bernard Parmegiani, Varese and Messiaen) seems shaken from classical tradition and those long, drawn out horrorscapes it has come to be associated with. In a duel with Lee, Ratsimandresy grasps the ondes’ extraordinary capacity for dexterity, nuance and speed, hounding Lee’s cello in a bid to drive her instrument out of the past and into the future.
Two fantastic pairings and a testament to the freshness with which Lee and her collaborators continue to work with their instruments.
---
Okkyung Lee / cello
Jérôme Noetinger / revox b77
Nadia Ratsimandresy / ondes martenot
---
Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Thursday 28th March & Friday 29th March by Paul Skinner and Shaun Crook. Mixed and mastered by Lasse Marhaug. Designed by Maja Larrson.
18,00€
Out of stock
LP
Evan PARKER
“The snake decides”
One of the final Incus releases and one that was written up in The Penguin Guide to Jazz as ‘an essential document of modern music’. Otoroku is proud to release the first ever vinyl re-issue of Evan Parker’s legendary recording The Snake Decides. Featuring 4 solos recorded in 1986 in St. Paul's Church, Oxford by the late Michael Gerzon. The Snake Decides is a groundbreaking example how far the language of a particular instrument can be taken.
From Brian Morton’s liner new notes:
“The Snake Decides attracts a certain array of adjectives - intense, radical, fearsome, hypnotic, virtuosic – and occasionally allows a more ambitious reviewer to avoid platitude by talking more specifically about 32nd harmonics, circular breathing, multiphonics and Gerson's exact choice and placement of microphones. But this misses a point, too. Listening to this record, either for the first or the fortieth time, is an arousing experience.”
Remastered by Giuseppe Ielasi and housed in a reverse board sleeve with new liner notes by Brian Morton this is the ultimate document of one of the most important recordings in all of Parker’s extensive and exploratory catalogue. Edition of 500 copies.
21,00€
Out of stock
LP
Derek BAILEY / Evan PARKER
“The London Concert”
Following on from the re-issue of Topography of the Lungs, Otoroku is proud to follow up with another legendary free-improvised document, this one from the duo of Derek Bailey and Evan Parker, originally released on the INCUS label in 1975. The London Concert is one of those rare recordings that capture musicians at a special moment of confluence, a moment when procedures are proving fruitful and before practice has hardened into dogma, when different visions are not yet turned into position papers (insert your list here). There are clearly moments in the London Concert when things that have not precisely happened before emerge from one partner, are caught and supported by the other in a way that, too, is still new 40 some years on, and which prods the initiator to hold and develop a particular line with the clear support of the other. - Stuart BroomerThe London Concert comes in a limited edition of 500 copies printed on reverse board with printed inner sleeve and newly commissioned liner notes by Stuart Broomer.
21,00€
In stock
LP
Kan MIKAMI – John EDWARDS – Alex NIELSON
“Live at Cafe Oto”
Japanese bluesman Kan Mikami is nothing less than an unalloyed force of nature. A skin-shredding blast of frozen wind from the poor, rural north of Japan that he calls home. In the late 1960s, like thousands of other Japanese young people Mikami made his way to Tokyo in search of a life different from that of his parents. Since then he has forcefully carved out a space for himself in the culture as a modernist poet, a raging folk singer, an author, a actor, an engaging TV personality, and one of Japan’s most uniquely powerful performers.
For most of Mikami’s career as a singer, he has performed solo. Just him and his electric guitar against the world, creating jagged A-minor vamps to drive along the surreal wisdom of his lyrics. But he’s equally at home in more demanding improvisational contexts such as those provided here by John Edwards on bass and Alex Nielson on drums. Their dense propulsive textures seem to spur on Mikami, his voice arcing powerfully into fragmented spaces, his guitar darting, colliding, shedding jagged and angular splinters of sound. A pulsing, raging maelstrom of serrated-edged energy. Gruff, rough, honest and very, very real.
Original price was: 19,50€.10,00€Current price is: 10,00€.
In stock
LP
Peter BROTZMANN – John EDWARDS – Steve NOBLE
“…The Worse The Better”
2016 RePress.
Recording of the stunning first set performed by the trio of Peter Brötzmann, Steve Noble and John Edwards at Cafe OTO in January 2010 during Brotzmann’s first residency at the venue. This was also the first time the trio had played together. Recorded at Cafe OTO by Shane Browne, mixed by John Edwards and mastered by Andres [LUPO] Lupich at Dubplates & Mastering,
Berlin.
REVIEWS : “...a 40minute splurge of sax, drums and bass skronk, live at the venue in 2010, from the German freejazz giant Brötzmann and two stars of the London improv scene. Unrepeatable moments of collective inspiration and sudden sunlit shafts of modal near melody punctuate the continuing energy blur. Business as usual down Dalston Junction.” Stewart Lee, The Sunday Times
“These two extended improvisations, recorded in January 2010 during Brötzmann’s first residency at OTO, finds the group attaining neartelepathic
modes of interconnectedness, despite this being the trio’s first outing together. From the off, Brötzmann’s gills are gurning, throwing up torrents of molten
roar, while Noble’s mulekicking at the traps reels out ride hits like a baby sporting a bonnet of bees.” Spencer Grady, BBC Music
“All three are on outstanding form, from the opening yelp when it comes to Big Bang beginning, nobody does it better than Brötzmann to Edwards’s snarling drone 38 minutes later. Shame engineer Shane Browne slammed thos faders down so brutally: for once, you feel like joining in with the whoops and hollers of the punters.” Dan Warburton, The WIRE
20,00€
Out of stock
CD
Yoshihide OTOMO – Sachiko M – Evan PARKER – John EDWARDS – Tony MARSH – John BUTCHER
“Quintet – Sextet”
Otomo Yoshihide, guitar. Sachiko M, sine waves. Evan Parker, saxophones.
John Edwards, double bass. Tony Marsh, drums. John Butcher, saxophones.
10,00€
Out of stock
CD
Peter BROTZMANN – John EDWARDS – Steve NOBLE
“…The Worse The Better”
2016 RePress.
Recording of the stunning first set performed by the trio of Peter Brötzmann, Steve Noble and John Edwards at Cafe OTO in January 2010 during Brotzmann's first residency at the venue. This was also the first time the trio had played together. Recorded at Cafe OTO by Shane Browne, mixed by John Edwards and Mastered by Andres [LUPO] Lupich at Dubplates & Mastering,
Berlin.
REVIEWS
“...a 40minute splurge of sax, drums and bass skronk, live at the venue in 2010, from the German freejazz giant Brötzmann and two stars of the London improv scene. Unrepeatable moments of collective inspiration and sudden sunlit shafts of modal near melody punctuate the continuing energy blur. Business as usual down Dalston Junction.” Stewart Lee, The Sunday Times
“These two extended improvisations, recorded in January 2010 during Brötzmann’s first residency at OTO, finds the group attaining neartelepathic
modes of interconnectedness, despite this being the trio’s first outing together. From the off, Brötzmann’s gills are gurning, throwing up torrents of molten
roar, while Noble’s mulekicking at the traps reels out ride hits like a baby sporting a bonnet of bees.” Spencer Grady, BBC Music
“All three are on outstanding form, from the opening yelp when it comes to Big Bang beginning, nobody does it better than Brötzmann to Edwards’s snarling drone 38 minutes later. Shame engineer Shane Browne slammed thos faders down so brutally: for once, you feel like joining in with the whoops and hollers of the punters.” Dan Warburton, The WIRE
12,00€
Out of stock
CD
Keiji HAINO – John BUTCHER
“Light Never Bright Enough”
Keiji Haino: Vocal, Guitars, etc. John Butcher: Saxophones and Feedback. Keiji Haino, one of the foremost exponents of the Japanese avant-garde, always provides a masterclass in constantly shifting improvisation. John Butcher is a saxophonist of rare grace and power, who has expanded the vocabulary of the saxophone far beyond the conventions of jazz and other musics, to encompass a staggering range of multiphonics, overtones, percussive sounds, and electronic feedback. Haino and Butcher met when Butcher opened for Fushitsusha at the show Cafe Oto arranged at St. John, Hackney - 5 years ago. In 2016 they were invited to play two duo concerts – at The Empty Gallery in Hong Kong and at Cafe Oto in London.
Otoroku is proud to present the audio documentation of their first UK meeting. Recorded live at Cafe Oto in July 2016 the results are an uncompromising milieu of swirling sound played out as a total union of these two legendary performers. Haino’s blues drenched guitar entices skittering notes from Butcher’s sax playing as numerous sonic clues unravel over the course of of this unique and compelling journey.
13,00€
In stock
CD
Kan MIKAMI – John EDWARDS – Alex NIELSON
“Live at Cafe Oto”
Japanese bluesman Kan Mikami is nothing less than an unalloyed force of nature. A skin-shredding blast of frozen wind from the poor, rural north of Japan that he calls home. In the late 1960s, like thousands of other Japanese young people Mikami made his way to Tokyo in search of a life different from that of his parents. Since then he has forcefully carved out a space for himself in the culture as a modernist poet, a raging folk singer, an author, a actor, an engaging TV personality, and one of Japan’s most uniquely powerful performers.
For most of Mikami’s career as a singer, he has performed solo. Just him and his electric guitar against the world, creating jagged A-minor vamps to drive along the surreal wisdom of his lyrics. But he’s equally at home in more demanding improvisational contexts such as those provided here by John Edwards on bass and Alex Nielson on drums. Their dense propulsive textures seem to spur on Mikami, his voice arcing powerfully into fragmented spaces, his guitar darting, colliding, shedding jagged and angular splinters of sound. A pulsing, raging maelstrom of serrated-edged energy. Gruff, rough, honest and very, very real.
13,00€