Akai vx 600
Teisco 60f
Roland tr 808
Roland tb 303
Yamaha a4000 as FX unit
Elektron analog four as midi sequencer and din sync only

Umbrexciya 210922 0106

This is Nathan McLaughlin’s latest installment of his Echolocation series. Following releases on Digitalis and Gift Tapes, #5 also continues the organic and thoughtful work of his duo Loud & Sad. Focused on tape loops, layers of delay, and some chordal forms, each piece is meticulously and methodically built, with each sonic element given its due. This sense of pacing and care given to every moment is a crucial element of McLaughlin’s work, and it’s deeply attuned here. The pieces reflect the environment in which they were composed, tight-knit and rural; they mass like storm clouds, and then are barely there, leaving just the fluttering of a distant echo. Stretches of silence, and windblown expanses. Rich chords swell into deeply contemplative passages that are gradually stripped away. A gorgeous, hushed set of tape music.

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"Echolocation #5 extends McLaughlin's exploration of the elegiac and the dirge, adding some crunchy, roiling passages as well. Often McLaughlin's loops gather, in small enough increments to avoid overt, ham-fisted drama, a strong sense of the ominous. These tensions, as well as the fine structural drift McLaughlin is patient enough to permit, make the Echolocation series a fluid one, without a start or an end. Echolocation #5 should be heard as an installation in a big-hearted work, issuing from a musician with an immense gift for subtle music. They are sent from a recondite artist who may well disappear before you receive them, so there's no time to waste." - Jesse Goin / Crow With No Mouth

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Mastered by Eric Steiger
Artwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery and N. McLaughlin

NTR017 - Nathan McLaughlin - Echolocation 5 "A1 5.1"

(re) Flux

OTOROKU is proud to present the first vinyl reissue of Blue Notes for Mongezi, one of the most passionate celebrations of a life in music ever laid to tape. Recorded in late 1975 by Blue Notes, then reduced to a quartet - Dudu Pukwana on  alto sax, whistle, percussion, and vocals; Johnny Dyani on bass, bells, and vocals; Louis Moholo-Moholo on drums, percussion, and vocals; and Chris McGregor on piano, and percussion - and issued the following year by Ogun, the album is a kairos; the first commercial release by one of free jazz’s seminal ensembles, captured them 13 years after their founding - at the height of their powers - delivering an explosive dirge dedicated to Mongezi Feza, their former bandmate and friend. 

Blue Notes were founded in Cape Town in 1962 and stand among the most important ensembles in the history of jazz. Artistically brilliant and groundbreaking - gathering, within a few short years, a devoted following that included Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, Abdullah Ibrahim, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Drew,Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, John Stevens, and numerous others - they were also the first widely visible multiracial band in South Africa.

As a mixed race band under South African apartheid; this group of friends and like-minded artists - Chris McGregor, Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana, Nikele Moyake, Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo-Moholo -  existed within a context that viewed their mere existence as a dangerous and subversive act. In 1964, as the pressure mounted, they joined an exodus of musicians leaving for Europe, eventually settling in London during the following year. Sadly, not long after arriving and facing continued economic peril, the group buckled. Johnny Dyani left to join Don Cherry’s band. Moholo-Moholo and Dyani followed suit and joined Steve Lacy on tour, and the remaining members morphed into a number of ensembles that eventually grew to become Chris McGregor's Brotherhood Of Breath.

In late 1975 however, Mongezi Feza - in the midst of a fruitful period collaborating with Dudu Pukwana, Johnny Dyani, and Okay Temiz - suddenly passed away at the age of thirty from pneumonia. Nine days later, on the 23rd December, following the memorial service to their friend, Pukwana, Dyani, McGregor, and Moholo-Moholo gathered in a rehearsal room in London and set out to play. Fittingly, no discussion took place before or during the session. The music was left to say it all.  

The resulting double LP coalesced into four long-form movements that occupy a side each, collectively unleashing an onslaught of free jazz fire, fluidly covering a remarkable range of moods and tactical approaches across it’s length. For anyone encountering the Blue Notes for the first time, the album must have felt like being blindsided by a brick, adding a profound sense of credence to Moholo-Moholo’s belief that free improvisation was intrinsically linked to the Pan-African temperament. In the band’s hands, the idiom sounds like nothing else and exactly as it should. 

A frenzied funeral dirge, a cry, and catharsis, the record rises and falls between playful and joyous movements of deconstructed song, rhythmic and vocal tribalism, and churning, instrumental free expression. It indicates not only a possible future for musical expression - as all truly avant-garde music does - but also the very roots of music itself, illuminating, through abstraction, the far-flung, ancient roots currently carried by the New Orleans “first line” march to the grave. It is a decidedly African vision of free jazz, coalescing as a collective expression of celebration and loss on a cold London day. It is a masterpiece unfolding in real time - out on a limb and laden with risk - created by four of the most talented voices the idiom has known.  

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DUDU PUKWANA / alto sax, whistle, percussion, vocals

CHRIS McGREGOR / piano, percussion

LOUIS MOHOLO / drums, percussion, vocals

JOHNNY DYANI / bass, bell, vocals and most of the words

ROKURE005 - Blue Notes For Mongezi "First Movement"

Amy Glass

idmspase

SSS & love horsin' - fancy town.mp3.exe

Active volcano recorded from the top, at the edge of the crater, during the night. 

Recorded by a DoubleMS Setup by Schoeps, CCM41+CCM8+CCM4 (in a Cinela Windscreen),
an AB Setup by DPA Microphones, 2 x 4006,
and a Geofon by LOM Audio.
On a Sound Devices 833 recorder.
Original recording in 192kHz, 24bit.
This sound has been edited and mixes the different sources.

GPS: -19.530189, 169.445493
Recorded on 6th of November 2022, between 6:30pm and 8:30pm.

Tanna Island

Volcano Mount Yasur, Tanna Island

This is Part 2 of "Beyond The Wall", the Hiroshimabend remix of :zoviet*france:'s "Hidden-by-the-Wall" Open Remix Project. All sounds used were created originally by :zoviet*france:, with additional remix and production by Puppy38 at Opiumdenpluto.

Beyond The Wall

Beyond The Wall (Part 2)

:zoviet*france: / Hiroshimabend - Beyond The Wall (Part 2)

Playlist and other information available at: https://www.freeformfreakout.com/fffoxy-podcast-212-liz-draper-crystal-myslajek-live-session/

**This episode includes an interview and solo live performances by Liz Draper and Crystal Myslajek and in their duo configuration as Chama Devora**

Liz Draper solo set:
1. “October” [1:11:05-1:17:02]
2. “Hopewick North” [1:17:07-1:22:20]
3. “Mem Marigold” [1:22:24-1:28:58]

Crystal Myslajek solo set:
1. “Imminence” [1:29:00-1:32:55]
2. “Radio Song” [1:32:57-1:40:15]

Chama Devora set:
1. “Awake” [1:40:25-1:46:35]
2. “Haga” [1:46:44-1:53:20]
3. “Embrujada” [1:53:31-1:59:00]

FFFoxy Podcast #212: Liz Draper & Crystal Myslajek live session

[PCLVA 014] VA - Fourteenth Listen [2022] Teaser

As you can imagine we are under huge pressure at the moment and are working flat out to ensure Cafe OTO survives this. The impact of this situation is extremely acute for small venues like ours and we need all the support we can get to pull through. Please donate what you can, if you can. Thank you. 

Cafe OTO opened in April 2008 with the aim of providing a home for creative new music that exists outside of the mainstream. It comprises one large cafe/performance space open during the day serving food and drink with an evening programme of live music almost seven nights a week. 

OTOROKU is part of OTOProjects - a not-for-profit Community Interest Company (CIC) that has been set up to manage the programme at Café Oto. Any profits from OTOROKU are put back into supporting what we do and will help us to continue programming the best musicians and performers from all over the world.

www.cafeoto.co.uk

NTR017 - Nathan McLaughlin - Echolocation 5 "A1 5.1"

cafeOTO