Metaphoric, historical but also just as easily enjoyed without any context at all, Laura Cannell's approach to fiddle and recorder has echoes of medieval tradition with a folk vernacular. Recorded on the first night of her series ‘Modern Ritual’, her set framed an evening which evoked both real and fictional landscapes and explored ideas of ritual through music and words. Singling out tracks from her first and third records (Quick Sparrows Over The Black Earth and Simultaneous Flight Movement respectively), Cannell draws a chapter from her work based on ritual - both natural and supernatural. Overbowing the fiddle and dual blowing recorder, she blurs fiction with history and conjures a new kind of Black Hour - a melodic two tone drone which is both tame and wild, and the image of a Sacristan drowned in his own font. --- Laura Cannell / fiddle, recorders --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook on Friday 17th March 2017. Mixed by James Dunn & Laura Cannell. Mstered by James Dunn. Lino print by Laura Cannell.

Last year we invited flutist, composer and educator Nicole Mitchell to make her London debut at OTO. Though originally lined up to play with semi frequent collaborator Joelle Leandre, Joelle had to pull out at the last minute. Instead, we asked Mark Sanders if he would like to play. Having never met before, Mark’s restrained approach to the kit, with skipping brushes on toms and light touches to a ride, a bell or wooden blocks gives remarkable space and air to Mitchell’s unique synthesis of flute and voice. Together they create  a strikingly sparse and minimal sound, but one which is no less full of joyous melodic hooks and grooves reminiscent of a stripped back Art Ensemble.  --- Nicole Mitchell / flute, voice Mark Sanders / percussion --- Tracklisting: 1. One - 24:10 2. Two - 7:18 3. Three - 10:34 --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Saturday 14th May, 2016 by James Dunn. Mixed & mastered by James Dunn.

Totally brilliant set from local legends Pat Thomas & Orphy Robinson (Black Top). Scuzzy electronics, dub bass rhythms and Pat's perfectly timed acoustic interludes on keys fuse with heavy vocal samples to produce a truly diasporic sound. Sounds like a walk down Ridley Road market soundtracked by Thelonius Monk and Jamal Moss.  "When you arrive in England there should be a bus or a trainline you can catch to your hotel. Getting from one side of London to the other should cost you no more than your entire life savings or first born child. If possible, try not to eat the food. If you really must then your safest bet is battered swan, chicken pyramids or tea pie - which is a pie with tea in it. The English brain is divided into two hemispheres - the left which produces spheres of shame and self loathing, and the right, which produces spheres of shame and self loathing." --- Pat Thomas / piano, keyboard, iPad Orphy Robinson / vibes, xylosynth, cajon, iPad, laptop & effects --- samples from: 1/ 'Hugh Masekela in discussion "We're bad imitations of those who oppressed us..." 2/ Willie Williams- Stand Up (Jah Shaka)  3/ Exurb1a England a beginners guide...   --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Tuesday, April 17th 2017 by Shaun Crook. Mixed & mastered by James Dunn. Photo by Dawid Laskowski.

Second release in an on-going series from saxophone and guitar 'duo' Daniel Blumberg and Seymour Wright. Mutated recordings made with heavy distortion and extreme amplification are live processed and manipulated to create a sinister, metallic ricochet. Release includes an ekphrasis by Brady Corbet responding to the music. --- Daniel Blumberg / guitar Seymour Wright / saxophone --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Monday 23rd May 2016 by Shaun Crook. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn. Ekphrasis by Brady Corbet. Font by Billy Steiger. Etching by GUO.

After last summer’s release of the exceptional Skene on Sean McCann’s Recital Program, it’s a pleasure to share Matthew Sullivan’s set from March this year. A percussive motif threads together obscured narratives and Sullivan creates totally new landscapes from his field recordings and their manipulation. Whilst some of the sounds are recognisable, the position you hear them from is frighteningly isolated - a gong becomes as eerie as office lighting static, a demonic football crowd celebrates your exit. One of our standout shows from this year for sure. If you're interested in Michael Pisaro, James Rushford or Mark Vernon this is one for you. --- Tracklisting 1. Untitled - 15:34 --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Wednesday 22nd March by Shaun Crook. Mixed and mastered by Shaun Crook.

New duo from ex-CalArts electronic composer Carl Stone and minimalist musician Miki Yui. Subtle, slight and spooky, the pair deploy the tiniest sounds to create soundscapes at the edge of perception. Less cut and glitched than Stone's solo work, Realistic Monk's sound seems to hardly be moving at first, only to shift underfoot and reveal delicate oscillations and MSP mappings. In time, narrative builds in ways similar to that of James Rushford and crys cole, and eerie vocal lines akin to a nomadic Ghedalia Tazartes loop and shudder in the periphery.  --- Carl Stone / MAX/MSP, microphone Miki Yui / sampler, solar-oscillator --- Tracklisting: 1. 5.3.17 - 55:17 --- Recorded on Suday 5th March by Simon Holliday. Mixed by Shaun Crook. Mastered by Shaun Crook and Carl Stone. Photograph by A.C.Baur.

Shimmering compositions for solo accordion by Hague-based American composer and instrumentalist Leo Svirsky. Playing somewhere between sound and sense, Svirsky dwells on tonal chromatic harmony but never seeks stability. Tones shift, diffuse, are eaten up by the crowds conversation. Having studied under Antoine Beuger (a principal mover in the Wandelweiser collective) Svirsky continues a departure from Cage or Feldman - embracing Romanticism and affect to make radical and destabalising psychoacoustic sound. Highly recommended.  "With works for piano, orchestra, and ensemble, Svirsky lights corners of hidden musical worlds with a palm sheltering the flame." —Britton Powell, BOMB Magazine (from the introduction from a wonderful conversation betwen Svirsky & Michael Pisaro)  --- Leo Svirsky / accordian --- Tracklisting: 1. Heights in Depths Cafe OTO - 20:40 2. Depths in Heights Cafe OTO - 19:13 --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Saturday 25th February by James Dunn. Mixed by James Dunn. Mastered by Shaun Crook.

Strikingly sparse and meditative percussive duo from esteemed vocalist Julie Tippetts and Confront boss man, Mark Wastell. Both equipped with a wealth of percussion but perfectly restrained, the pair are near-still, bright and clear at first, until the surface of their glistening sound begins to prickle and rush with an unseen current. Tippett's voice effortlessly matches the bellows of the Wastell’s shruti box, and its gentle drone highlights her natural vocal warmth. Intimate, explorative and intuitive, each note struck or sung is turned over gently, explored, and put back down to rest - like a rare find in a rock pool. We hope to see this duo make a return to OTO soon! --- Julie Tippetts / voice, Sri Lankan hand drums, bells, singing bowls, water bowls, thumb piano, seed pod shaker, Balinese mini xylophone, struck hand drum Mark Wastell / tam tam, cracked ride cymbal, shruti box, chimes, hand drum, Indian temple bells, singing bowls --- Tracklisting: 1. Unraveling the Waterfall - 30:55 --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by James Dunn on Tuesday 17th of January 2017. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn.

The Two Ronnies, The Pet Shop Boys, Suicide and now Dale 'n' Phil. 6.2.17 marks the first live outing of much new material from these two excellent human beings - and it also marks possibly the only time we’ve seen proper heckling in OTO’s usually library quiet atmosphere. “It’s not Whitehouse definitely!” some blogger shouts, but what is? We can't repeat Dale's real retort - you'll have to download the whole thing for that, but we can say it often sounds like a landscape of embarrassing human phrasing dug up by Dale and slung back at the audience, to be consumed while Phil's bass line slowly shifts out of sync beneath you.  “Language is a nuisance” goes one of their ‘songs’, and they’re right, but if we’re going to keep on using it lets please put Dale Cornish in charge of the dictionary.   --- Dale Cornish / vocals Phil Julian / electronics --- 1. Role (0:00-3:11) 2. Exhibition (3:11-5:43) 3. Chairs (5:43-9:33) 4. Language Is A Nuisance (9:33-12:33) 5. Part Human (12:33-16:14) 6. Chip Shop (16:14-19:45) 7. Laughing Out (19:45-end) (Download comes as one uninterrupted set of 23:15) --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Monday 6th of Febuary 2017 by Shaun Crook. Mixed by James Dunn and mastered by Phil Julian.  ---

Super brutal sounds from conductor Ilan Volkov from his support show here in February. Volkov's bow rasps and tears his un-tuned, un-tamed violin into fizzing electronic realms - sample moments of this you could be in power electronics world. Has the ingenuity and playfulness of early AMM, and the timbral breadth and simple gesticular approach of Billy Steiger or Ute Kangeisser. So often heard leading a group or improvising in one, this is a wonderful insight into Volkov's sheer joy and relentless drive to explore sound. --- Ilan Volkov / violin --- Tracklisting: 1. 9:46 2. 6:27 3. 9:08 --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook on Thursday 16th of February 2017. Mixed and mastered by James McMultitalented Dunn.

Super happy to have dug this out of the archives - the final night of the great French double bass player, improviser and composer, Joëlle Léandre's 2015 residency. Léandre was joined by Scottish improvising vocalist and dancer, Maggie Nicols, and drummer Roger Turner for both nights, and the second of the two saw sparks fly. Solo, Léandre is formidible - melodious, angry, rousing. Her voice breaks through the bass like McPhee's through a trumpet - there's joy, there's humour, and it's 100% intense. Léandre and Nicols have a long history together - 1982's Live at The Bastille with Lyndsey Cooper still stands strong - and their trio with Irène Schweizer as 'Les Diaboliques' is totally unique. Here, both performers are totally at home with with each other and with their sounds - there's depth, unpredictability, intensity and delirious humour. A treasure to share all five pieces, and we hope for another Léandre residency some day soon!  “A true, real artist. Stubborn. Visionary. Uncompromising. Intense. Tender and poetic at moments, raw and angry with the world at other times. She is unconcerned by style, and definitely stays far away from stylistic and formal mannerisms that are needed to placcate the reviewers and the hip audiences. She integrates music as music, and delivers it as music, using elements from tribal rituals over classical finesse to jazz expressionism and avant-garde search for new approaches, yet turning it all into something else, something more authentic, more innovative and - interestingly enough - also more universal.” – The Free Jazz Collective --- Joëlle Léandre / double bass, vocals  Maggie Nichols / vocals Roger Turner / percussion --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Wednesday 18th March, 2015 by Mark Jasper. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn. Photo by the wonderful Dawid Laskowski.

Last November we were delighted to welcome back one of the most important musicians of the Japanese underground/avant-garde - Otomo Yoshihide - for his first show here since 2013. Joined by Japanese drummer Hiroshi Yamazaki (who has Kaoru Abe among his extensive list of past collaborators, and was also a member of Masayuki Takayanagi’s pioneering New Directions group) and legendary saxophonist Evan Parker, the two duos and extended trio mark the first time these three have collaborated. Yoshihide's guitar scrawl knots up Yamazaki's wide angled percussion and when Parker comes in for the trio it's not long before his familiar lines warp up into Yoshihide's strung out, high freq reverb for a dark, light and deep level wig-out. It's truly special when a trio works first time like this, and we hope they'll be back together before long.  --- Otomo Yoshihide / guitar Hiroshi Yamazaki / percussion Evan Parker / saxophone --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook on Monday the 14th Novemeber, 2016. Mixed and mastered by the ever talented James Dunn. Photo by Dawid Laskowski.

Please note, should you wish to skip the silent-ish cuts,  go straight to 'Une Petit Prelude'. We thought it best to include everything. Composer, musical theorist, multi-instrumentalist, and one of the founders of Fluxus, Philip Corner's debut show at OTO was funny, sincere and inventive. Alongside his wife Phoebe Neville, the pair mixed relatively unheard compositions with stage interventions and brand new improvisations. At one special point, Corner and Neville - both blind behind Javanese masks - played a borrowed Casio and named the piece 'Understanding'. Gold. Solo, Corner performed one of his more recent pieces, 'Agnesia', a one note near-Elemental number inspired by the painter Agnes Martin. 'An Ideal Amen' was derived from the final chords of the Berlioz Requiem and features Neville adding vocals. Corner and Neville closed by playing touching tribute to their dear friend and esteemed Fluxus collegue Ben Patterson - a piano version of Patterson's 'Paper Piece'. A generous and wonderous pair of people -- more high-jinks and meditations inside. Notes for the show as printed for the audience: "buy something to eat or drink and then sometime during …… make consciously & explicitly a sound with it. Thus adding to the music …” --- Philip Corner / piano, keyboard Phoebe Neville / vocals, keyboard --- --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Monday 19th September by James Dunn. Mixed and Mastered by James Dunn. Photo by Dawid Laskowski.

Composer, saxophonist and sound artist Antoine Chessex is usually known for playing through distorting stacks of guitar amplifiers to create monolithic walls of noise and texture, but on 12.12.16 he teamed up with free music giants John Edwards and Steve Noble to play an all acoustic trio -  an attempt to deconstruct the ‘classic’ formula of the tenor sax, bass and drums. Right off the bat Chessex's extended technique reaches combustable energy levels, and Edwards and Noble push pace and space to a taut intensity. Fresh, fierce and always under control - we very much hope this trio returns. For now though, dig in to this.   --- Antine Chessex / saxophone John Edwards / double bass Steve Noble / drums --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook on Sunday 12th December, 2016. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn. Photo by Dawid Laskowski.

OG footwork DJ/producer RP Boo aka Kavain Space brought 3½ hours of footwork fire to OTO in November. Mixing his own tracks with cuts from Rashad and samples of Roy Ayres, Del La Soul, Jocelyn Brown and Gerald Levert to name a few, Boo kept his crowd on their toes the whole way - occasionally joining them to dance his adidas into thin air. Simple, sweaty and infectious - if you're stuck for something to play in the wee hours of New Years Day we reckon this will mix in nicely after 'Auld Lang Syne.'  --- RP Boo / cdjs --- Recorded by Tom Mudd live at Cafe OTO on Thursday 10th November, 2016. Mixed by Abby Thomas. GIF by Oli Barrett. Big thanks to Kavain and Pedro.

1.10.16 documents prolific noise master Merzbow's double show here back in October. Rhythm driven and rammed with highly sculpted frequencies, Akita's sound is entirely remorseless. Furious squalls and delicate sine-warps post this one on the more psychedelic end of Akita's output. Truly relentless, it is still hard to believe he created Untitled Knife I on a casual Saturday lunchtime. Be careful with that volume.  --- Masami Akita / electronics --- Tracklisting: Untitled Knife I - 50:06 Untitled Knife II - 54:52 --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook on Saturday 1st October, 2016. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn.

Collection of live performances by free flux improv icons The People Band. Recorded at OTO between 2008 and 2014 and bookended with solos by the late Mel Davis, the clan create a hubbub of frenetic free jazz and chaotic, polyrhythmic thrusts.  The origins of the people band can be traced back to 1965 and the core members of the band had all arrived by 1969 / 70. Although all the musicians involved are playing within other genres - the love and power of this collective has inspired all to maintain and develop the work for over 50 years.  This album is dedicated to the memory of the founder member, pianist, teacher and continued inspiration - Mel Davis - who left us in 2013. Two solo tracks open and close this album by way of our deep respect.  --- Mel Davis / piano, thrumb piano, perc.  Terry Day / percussion, reed pipes etc.  Mike Figgis / pocket trumpet, guitar George Khan / saxes, flute Davey Payne / saxes Paul Jolly / saxes, bass clarinet Charlie Hart / bass, violin Tony Edwards / percussion Adam Hart / piano, trombone  and featuring: Tony Marsh  Maggie Nichols Ed Deane Terry Holman  Ben Higham Dave Chambers Brian Godding and with thanks to: Jim Dvorak Dave Fowler Oly Blanchflower --- Recorded by Arlen Figgis. Mastered by Nick Pugh at Session Corner. New artwork sourced from a Fabio Lugaro photograph. Previous artwork by Gina Southgate (original CD release). Produced by 33 Jazz / Paul Jolly. Thanks to Tim Powell and to the audiences that keep this remarkable band alive, and thanks to 33 Jazz who originally released the recordings as a CD. You can find the CD here.

Two slabs of dark ambience from composer, electronic musician and co-founder of MEV, Alvin Curran, and incendiary bassist Massimo Pupillo. The pair’s mutual interest in ritual and spirituality combine with field recordings, live electronics, and improvised piano and bass. Chants whirr in a cloud of electronic static, full kit percussion plays behind locked doors and Pupillo's suspended bass tones build huge shoals of sound which turn and shift on an unseen apogee. 12.10.16 is maelstrom free from dogma - a caustic and consuming collaboration.  --- Alvin Curran / piano, sampler Massimo Pupillo / bass guitar --- Tracklisting: 1. 49:02 2. 51:02 --- Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Shaun Crook on Wednesday October 12th, 2016. Mixed and mastered by James Dunn.