Large Unit have sometimes been the locus for exhausting “energy jazz” blow-bots, and also featured a sizeable number of figures in their crew (hence the name), and indeed 15 matelots have signed up to this particular voyage – look elsewhere for a full roster of names on the manifest, but there’s a hefty amount of brass and woodwind along with harp, accordion, electric guitar, two bassists and two drummers. Full sound – maximal – none of your post-modern minimal doubters here. Interestingly, Nilssen-Love has turned his prow towards that part of the map marked “New Music” and drawn up his charts using methods inspired by John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Cornelius Cardew for these two albums, so in one sense they’re both examples of his compositional skills. For New Map, he used open-form cells – said cells might be reproduced here inside the gatefold – which give rows of notes, prose instructions, and directional ideas for the players, who were called on to respond mustering all their musical puff and falaise. I see rows of notes, numbers, arrows, words with terse instructional suggestions…without knowing any more, I suppose it’s the interaction and overlapping of these cells that give New Map its shape and its heft. Strong results – in places closer to chamber music than strict jazz, and less dense than your average Cecil Taylor composition (I would claim there is overlap here with Taylor’s methods), but that porous quality allows us to hear the individual instrument voices in choice fashion. Large Unit arrive at pleasing combinations and generate a lot of smoking heat and spicy fish; what more could you ask? Lasse Marhaug’s cover designs for this, and the other stalking bear, may draw from the well of Germany’s titan of free jazz, improv and bold typography on his FMP covers, Peter Brötzmann.

The Clusterfuck item also very strong, same format – three pieces from the same method – only this time Nilssen-Love used graphical notation, a method often associated with Englishman Cardew at one time in his career. You’d never have guessed. The prudish Cornelius Cardew would never have countenanced such frenetic playing in his mental conservatoire, not even in the context of AMM Music or the Scratch Orchestra. It’s true that the title track here exhibits many moments of the unkempt wildery which for me characterises the Largesters, but it’s impressive when they switch to the smokier zones and leave yawning gaps in their passages of studied ambiguity and purple soup. It’s clearer on this record (of the two) how the compositional strategies are deliberately evened out with free-form blowing, and the band are allowed to let the dynamite out of the pail. Same qualities as New Map here to enjoy – the unpredictable pairing of musical voices, and the oddness of the sounds they produce – scrapes, hoots, jangles, nothing conventionally “pleasing” to soothe the ears of refined aesthete listeners, and instead delighting in the raw and the crude.

Aye lads, besides upsetting Cardew and his wizened puritanical followers, it’s likely that the meaty fist of Large Unit under PNL’s direction would also sour the cream in Reinhold Friedl’s coffee, as Zeitkratzer are the only European unit I can summon to the table at the moment who might hold a candle to this forest fire. OK Paal, you win! From 28 February 2023.

It’s evident that PNL is very knowledgable about Brazilian music and its many regional variations, and the musicians here are more than capable on delivering on the tasks they have been set, but I feel (as with many of this musician’s projects) that it’s being over-inflated, overstated, and most of its subtleties removed in favour of “let’s all have a good time”. I seem to be saying it’s all on the surface, but then again that’s hard to square with the complexities and depths we can hear in operation here, even during the short moments I managed to endure. Living out the mood of enforced bonhomie, he has indeed arrived at a new form of “circus jazz”, with its joyous colourful éclats announcing the arrival of popular and lively entertainment in your town. Not every track is full-on; there’s some breathing space in ‘Hummingbird’ and ‘Round About Lapa’, both cuts which also give Venter a charge to spread her vocal wings and make her profound utterances about the secret of life, in between accomplished and daring high-pitched acrobatics that are hard to believe. None for me thanks, but I’m sure many listeners will enjoy it. (28/11/2022)

Port Of Saints (DISCUS MUSIC DISCUS 128CD) has been a labour-intensive construction and editing job from compositions by Caines and what seems to have been some marathon recording sessions, arranged into three related suites on the album. There are musical themes stated and restated throughout this musical travelogue, which takes in locations such as ‘Petite Afrique’ and ‘Oceanania’ with detours into Ancient Egypt, a mythological maze, and the paintings of Franz Kline and Philip Guston. Archer did all the arrangements and production for this ambitious work, besides playing saxophones, organ, and Rhodes electric piano, and the Axis group comprises familiar names from the Discus roster such as Gus Garside, Chris Sharkey, Corey Mwamba, and Johnny Hunter. The spotlight also falls (occasionally) on guest trumpeter Byron Wallen, violinist Graham Clark, and Ben Higham on tuba.

The use of electronics has been extensive; both guitar and vibraphones have been subjected to live electronic treatments, plus there’s the soundscaping work of Herve Perez – who also provided post-production tweaks. These soundscapes are subtle, but act as ante-rooms or bridges between the various imaginary spaces which freely flow from the imagination of Ron Caines. The saxophones of Caines remain the centre of musical attention, but it’s admirable the way this ensemble and their contributions have been seamlessly integrated into this elaborate tapestry of music, providing subtle counterpoints and layers to what is already very busy and lively music. There is much content to reward the inquisitive listener; at times you can feel two or more opposing currents, pulling in different directions like the tides or buffets of wind.

Small wonder that Archer and Co proudly regard this record as “an electroacoustic suite” and not just another jazz album, and although Teo Macero is not explicitly name-checked, one would like to think Port Of Saints has been constructed in the same spirit of Macero’s unique way of “painting” on the recording tape. From 1st March 2022.

Not so much free jazz blowing here, rather a very composed and nicely-arranged set of long tunes paying close attention to dynamics and exciting shifts in register, making it all extremely accessible. I see Vågan often draws favourable comparison with the great Charles Mingus, who was not only a bass player and a maverick larger-than-life character, but also a superb arranger and bandleader. He in turn drew influence from Duke Ellington, and it’s traits of Mingus and Ellington that do indeed surface frequently on today’s set of taut tunes and demonstrations of instrumental prowess. I mean particularly in the execution of difficult time signatures, and switching between them midway; the bold intervallic leaps in certain tunes, such as ‘AfterMath Rock’; and also the way that the different voicings of the instruments are carefully showcased and combined to thrilling effect. Brass, strings, woodwinds by the score, plus piano, Hammond organ, synth, and two drummers.

Vågan also elects to tell a “story” in his music, or at any rate create musical impressions of an interesting scenario, one that’s a hot topic – he calls it an “end time scenario”, one where the characters are completely unaware of the “impending doom” that’s coming down the pipe. In fact, he’s tried something akin to this in 2018 on Happy Endlings, a piece to which Plastic Wave is reckoned as a sequel. But he refuses to be pessimistic, and finds a peculiar sort of black humour in the end of the world, which he describes as “apocalyptic slapstick”. This streak runs throughout much of the lively music on Plastic Wave, and we can’t help thinking of it as one jump away from circus music to accompany the entry of the clowns, except that the circus is a grim parade of decadence and the clowns are utterly grotesque as they cavort through this final act as the human race takes its final bow. One specific fate that awaits us, according to Vågan, is a dreadful meltdown that he likens to a volcanic conflagration, melting all the plastic and trash with which we’ve polluted the globe, and creating a new geological specimen thereby. This has been visualised by Flu Hartberg on the cover artworks, depicting semi-humanoid green blobs poised precariously on square slabs, all swept along in the vast plastic wave as it tips them over the edge like a waterfall.

The record thus contains a serious warning for the human race, for sure, but it’s not delivered in a gloomy or didactic manner, and the music is massively entertaining. From 6th September 2021.

The set opens with the three not-unrelated parts of ‘Dreamtime’, a suite performed on synthesizer by the composer in 1980 and 1986. They relate to “Blue” Gene’s understanding of “the dreamtime” within Australian mythology; he seems to have been struck most of all by the time-travelling aspect of it, and the supernatural powers of these ancestors and their deep connection with the landscape. The music has also been used in a theatre context. On first spin I’ll confess I was underwhelmed by these instrumental pieces which seemed rather lightweight, and close to New Age music in their melodic simplicity and quasi-mystical atmosphere. As noted previously though, “Blue” Gene does not always behave in the way we might expect of an avant-garde composer. I’m now learning to love the understated low-key charms and minimal rigour of ‘Dreamtime’, especially the third episode called ‘Blue Moon Rye’ which namechecks both Moondog and Terry Riley (two long favourites of this listener), as well as his own nickname. “Riley invented what I call pattern music”, states the composer in this warm tribute.

‘Tango For Band’ is one major highlight of this box set for me. Credited to Peter Gordon and The Love Of Life Orchestra, a touring band which Blue Gene played with for many years. I suppose they could be said to play a form of big band jazz, but then there’s the very odd Star Jaws album from 1977 (on Lovely Music), which is not too far away form orchestrated disco with aspirations to soundtrack music. On this particular cut from 1985, the credit roster is almost a who’s who of avant-garde players – Jon Gibson, Richard Landy, Peter Zummo and Neb Sublette are all here, moonlighting from gigs with Philip Glass, Glenn Branca, and Downtown Ensemble. This 10-minute tour de force – dedicated to fellow band leader Carla Bley – is a masterpiece of intricate dynamics, tricky rhythms, and interwoven melodic lines, all the more remarkable for the fact that every part of it was meticulously scored and notated by the composer. There’s something uniquely American about this joyous and boisterous “circus jazz” piece, except that its creator is too modest to affect the pretensions of a larger-than-life Barnum-styled ringmaster character.

‘Tango For Band’ was originally written for piano alone, making me wonder if “Blue” Gene Tyranny had any aspirations to emulate the complex player-piano scores of Conlon Nancarrow. I had the same impression from ‘Any Fine Afternoon’, a 1983 jazz-ish instrumental realised with multiple overdubs of piano on top of what I think is an instrumental backing made with synths and drum machine. Like the above, it’s full of a “joyous rhythmic complexity” that’s not only infectious, but guarantees multiple listens. The composer improvised all of these piano runs at a single recording session. It seems to have had its origins in the soundtrack for a teaching video, from when he was working at Palo Alto.

‘Meditation for Trio and Chamber Orchestra’ goes some way to reminding us of the avant-garde side of “Blue” Gene Tyranny. I had no idea that he had a piece performed at the ONCE Festival in Ann Arbor in 1963, which I mention as it’s an event that’s become something like a touchstone for me of a certain strain of American modernist music. What’s more, it was a graphic score (another one of my ongoing preoccupations), although the composer doesn’t see fit to expand on that aspect of the piece. What he’s done here is combine the 1963 recording (conducted by Bob James, who made the untypical Explosions LP for ESP-Disk) with a later recording made in a New York studio in 1993, crediting soloists for vibraphone and marimba. In creating this audio palimpsest, Tyranny wishes to illustrate something about how it’s possible to realise many different-sounding pieces from the same composed source.

This particular disc seems to have occasionally highlighted the composer’s dexterity in realising a work of some complexity, an observation which also applies to the last cut ‘Sleeping Beauty in Camouflage’, composed in 1992. Originally scored for piano, vibraphone and marimba, but here remade using synthesizer parts, a decision that was deemed necessary in order to get closer to the required degree of precision. Despite its laid-back and unassuming air, this piece is devilishly hard to follow, with very tricky time signatures and ingeniously interlocked layers of instrumentation. At one level, it’s a more user-friendly and less bombastic take on what Frank Zappa was trying to do, especially with material like the ‘Black Page’. The compositional density here appears to have been mapped out from the study of mathematical grids and structures, specifically concerned with cycles of the sun and the growth rate of a certain cactus (!). I’ve heard other contemporary composers attempting to recast scientific data as music, but it so often ends up boring process music; not so here. The composer also entertains, and expresses, philosophical notions about how the brain behaves during the act of creativity. All that in just 6:46 minutes; the takeaway from today’s spin must be something to do with the composer’s gift for compression, for expressing rich ideas inside a very tight packet of musical information.

Orchestra of the Upper Atmosphere is Archer’s talented group who always pull off the feat of sounding like there are more players than there are. Here on Theta Five (DISCUS MUSIC DISCUS101CD), an eight-piece of amplified musicians create a maximal effect without needing to resort to loud volume; plenty of rich detail, incident, and musical texture. On their previous outing (Theta Four, noted in 2018), this “improvising rock group” were seemingly keen to experiment with several stylistic modes, while today’s album is more focussed; at any rate they certainly aim for long duration, the better to express the joys of unfettered playing; ‘Changeling’ is a substantial 20:29, but the heavyweight here is ‘Pillared Space’, zoning in with the full album-length 42:03 minutes. Both of these give a tremendous amount of leeway to the players to stretch out and meander, without losing sight of a core structure that keeps everything hanging together.

As ever with Archer, the process of realisation is meticulous, thorough, labour-intensive; a combination of composition with improvisation, and a certain amount of studio editing and arrangement after the fact. This all creates a nice tension between freedom and structure, leaving plenty of imaginary space for the listener to explore. Some fusion-esque elements appear scattered about the nebulous sprawl, and there’s a fair amount of electronic devices bubbling around under and over the surface, including synths, mellotron, software, midi keyboards, the Korg wave drum, and just plain “live electronics”. Some of this project was realised during lockdown in 2020, and the group photograph reflects this isolation, showing a composite of figures collaged in a white room, some of them standing in gilt frames like full-length portraits.

Now for some bracing modernism on the Steinway grand. The music on Of Quietude (DISCUS MUSIC DISCUS100CD) was 100% improvised by Dirar Kalash, and yet it’s every bit as dissonant and alienating as any piece of 20th-century serialism, tone-row music, or Cage-inspired randomness. Dirar Kalah of Ramallah in Palestine is a serious musician, working in composition and improvisation, and wrestling with “theoretical concepts”, and his work also manifests as mixed-media, sound installations, or photography exhibits. Not long ago (2018), he played a duo with John Tilbury at Cafe Oto, which I mention as I would imagine the two of them share a bit of common ground.

For this particular record, there’s a back-story about which one would like to learn more, but it seems that Dirar Kalash can’t perform live or even get to a piano very easily. When he came to the UK, he managed to get his hands on a piano at Huddersfield, and Simon Reynell was able to record the encounter. Apparently his long “musical abstinence” was so intense that he just had to improvise, and two lengthy solo pieces are the result. Further, he brought a lot of his own personal baggage and history to the session, and in his descriptive notes Kalash seethes with passion about politics, rifts, and “deep energy”; the thrust of his argument is that he was more interested in expressing these deep motives than he was with simply making music. His use of the word “tectonic” in this context implies that he’s a human earthquake waiting to happen, and while these piano pieces are not as wild as a Cecil Taylor assault, there’s a lot of compacted emotion in the stifled phrasing, the many discords, the staccato approach which betokens a personality who doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

Unexpected discovery of the day is this 2004 concert of a work by the great Keith Tippett, recorded by the BBC and featuring the BBC Singers, plus two teams of saxophone players and Julie Tippetts, who composed the text of The Monk Watches The Eagle (DISCUS MUSIC DISCUS102CD) and was the lead singer. Tippett was mainly known to one and all as a superb jazz / improvising pianist, and as one of the few UK musicians to make interesting crossover inroads into progressive rock (via King Crimson, and his own Centipede), but he was also capable of producing very convincing modernist compositions, one of which is Linückea (a very adventurous blend of classical and jazz forms). The Monk Watches The Eagle is an amazing piece of choral music, in places rivalling my favourite records in this mode by Penderecki, Messiaen, or Ligeti; part 4 especially could easily pass muster as modern devotional music, while still experimenting with strange mixed chords in extraordinary fashion.

Not content with that, Keith Tippett also finds a way to accommodate jazz passages from his massed saxophones; and of course the free-form warbling of Julie Tippetts, who is allowed a generous amount of stylistic freedom on this record. Her text has a semi-religious theme – “the thoughts and reflections of a monk” at the point of death, is how she describes it – and seems to be a work of her own imagination, rather than one modelled on a piece of scripture or devotional text. It’s been quite a delight to discover this, as Keith Tippett is a personal favourite of this listener, and he has produced a work of great originality, sensitivity, and emotional richness.

All the above from 29th October 2020.

With major involvement in Beck Hunters, The Caines/Archer Axis and the Storytellers sextet, bandleader/guitarist Anton Hunter is fast becoming a fairly regular presence at ‘Le Club Discus’. His most recent recording project, Article XI initially came to fruition back in 2014 when Anton was commissioned by the Manchester Jazz Festival to create a number of scores for an expanded instrumental set-up. three years later, and this time at the behest of ‘Jazz North East’, a live set was recorded at the Bridge Hotel as part of a double-header with Cath Roberts’ Favourite Animals; another large, stage-crowding concern.

Not that we should quickly shuffle past a great respraying job on “Not the Kind of Jazz you Like” (a title coined from a Stewart Lee routine and featuring some barnstorming baritone sax from Cath Roberts), but the focus of attention really leans towards a pair of new eleven minute plus tracks, in which that alluring glint of an eight strong brass frontline is thankfully never far away.

The first, “Municrination” (not a word that the O.E.D. particularly likes), sees some stately elongated lines of a decidedly cool euro jazz shade being torn up by the roots by a bullish trumpet solo and a collective noun of free-blowing parpage that ties itself into a series of elegantly constructed knots. At times bringing to mind Sun Ra, caught in that brief moment between cosmic nightmare and full blown conciousness.

“Always a Fox” meanwhile, (referring to Leicester City’s shock smash ‘n’grab league title win back in 2016), is a complex body of work forged in seven segments. The interludes or links between these, deliberately tippexed and/or smudged in order to keep things fresh and happening for any future live performance.

As to the bizarro three-panelled sleeve image, I did wonder if the artist Angela Guyton might just be riffing on “Ophelia” (the real thing can be found in all its glory on the front cover of the “Rest in Peace” L.P. by Electric Peace, a heavee psyche band from California who recorded for Big K and Barred Records during the late eighties) by Southampton’s finest export John Everett Millais? But no, apparently this artwork, “I Dreamed I Spat out a Bee” has its origins in a dream that Anton’s partner had and is now captured for posterity doublefold, as it’s also the title of this collection’s closing track. Another splendid retooling of a number from their debut recording.

That item was released by Tour De Bras in Canada, this one is a joint imprint with French label Circum-Disc…GGRIL Plays Ingrid Laubrock (CIRCUM-DISC MICROCIDI015 / TOUR DE BRAS TDB9039CD) documents what happened when this German-born New York saxophonist and composer came along to conduct the group in 2018. Why I’ve not encountered Laubrock’s music before now is a mystery. Active since the mid-1990s at least, she’s led a number of her own combos such as Anti-House, Sleepthief, and the Ingrid Laubrock Octet, and has teamed up a few times with the American drummer Tom Rainey. More recently, she has also played the compositions of Anthony Braxton.

For today’s record, GGRIL – the Grand Group Régional d’Improvisation Liberee – play just three of her compositions, ‘Silent Lights’, ‘Stark Dark’ and ‘Palindromes’; each one a marvellous example of strong dynamics and great contrasts, making them meat and drink for a group like GGRIL. For these Canadians, apparently working with Laubrock brought them into “new, less abstract territory than usual”, implying that structure, narrative and focus have been foregrounded over the excesses (dare I say it) of free improvisation. The 12-piece playing this music – including strings, brass, percussion, electric guitar and bass, and accordion – realise the detail of this exciting music with notable skill, and no compositional gesture is beyond their craft. Based on the evidence I’m hearing, Ingrid Laubrock understands very well how to pair and group certain instruments together, savouring their unique voices, to bring just the right effect she’s after; moments of ‘Stark Dark’ demonstrate this most clearly, providing small and intimate passages that are in complete contrast to its stormy opening. At the same time, the players are allowed a certain amount of non-music noise generation in their actions, so that this piece walks the knife-edge with the certainty of a well-heeled spider wearing armour.

To me ‘Stark Dark’ conjures a nocturnal atmosphere with strange events unfolding, whereas ‘Palindromes’ is even more mysterious and more extreme in its use of dynamics and unusual instrument voicings…tension and apprehension in 7:01 mins of nail-biting in this delicate mist. I suppose ‘Silent Lights’ is the main event, and is probably the most accessible for those expecting some form of big-band free-improv music with its extremes of volume, lively passages of spontaneous-sounding blart, and a showcase for just about all the instruments in the group (though not all at once). Once again though Laubrock’s strong compositional direction is leading the way, taking us across a number of wild and rugged terrains with the assurance of a real maestro. What I mainly like is that Laubrock is not out to shock or surprise the listener, unlike some of the more infamous members of the various New York schools, yet we are still rewarded with continual invention and surprise in these ingenious, passionate, thought-through pieces.

All those who participated in these October 2018 session can feel proud of the day’s work; apparently they recorded five pieces in all, but only released three. I want to hear more; Ingrid Laubrock is now my new favourite thing in the world! From 26th February 2020.

Lest one be tempted to anticipate a pastiche or worse, a tribute, aside from the odd passing resemblance (guitarist Chris Sharkey does a good turn as John McLaughlin; trumpeter Charlotte Keeffe as Miles), Anthropology Band is not about historical re-enactment but of analysing the play of variables such as group format. Archer presents two versions of the composition: 1) a septet (control group) and 2) an orchestra, which makes Anthropology Band an authentically experimental work. Even the title is redolent of scientific enquiry.

Also striking is the force of the septet, which rocks, swings and takes flight in roughly equal measures. The music is notated and often bass-driven, yet loosely structured enough to allow ample room for soloing – guitar pyrotechnics being a specialty. While the set loosely adopts the Bitches Brew jazz fusion formula, it’s reminiscent of contemporary equivalents like John Zorn’s Electric Masada, which augmented his free jazz/klezmer fusion quartet with abstract electronics and hard-rock grooves. Although never so raucous, Anthropology is a high octane vehicle of its own with a steady clip of flighty highlights. Yet even when the pace slows, as on the simmering ‘Fire on 88th’ (all rolling bass and liquid trumpet), the mood(iness) never lets up.

The second disc drops the energy of the septet to address the Gil Evans question and the results are suggestive of a number of possible musical directions; soundtrack for one. Keeffe reprises her role here as trumpeter and co-orchestrated the pieces with Archer, which effectively makes her the project’s Davis and Evans. This signals a significant departure in sound as well, making this the less immediate of the two versions. As the jazz fusion element shifts from rock to classical, there are hints of sluggishness under the weight of so many participants, leaving a sense that the orchestra is but a (stationary) vehicle for the jazzier pyrotechnics. However, it does work up a good head of steam before long. ‘Behind Another Sun’ is a particularly bracing fusion of contrasting tendencies – nimble bass balanced with coordinated stabs of brass. All told, it’s a fascinating point of comparison and sibling to the septet version.

As with most of Archer’s work, Anthropology Band is a refreshing proposition for tired ears and the Miles mythos alike – so much so that this project saw Archer removed from the studio to which he’d long since retired to undertake a short tour earlier this year (ironically, shortly before the current lockdown began). While I sense that this project satisfies Archer’s curiosity regarding the Gil Evans question, I wonder whether there’s further mileage to be drawn from this niche? What if Teo Macero had produced Kind of Blue, perhaps?

Of course, the contemporary British avantist doesn’t really need to have a smattering of the intuitive capabilities of a Bletchley Park boffin, but if by chance, he/she does…well, it’s aces all the way. Especially so when tenor saxist/composer Matt London’s graphic score for “Rituals” is laid out for fellow band members of Orchestra Entropy to inwardly digest. A ‘get out of jail card’ when notational drafts were found to be slightly wanting. “Rituals” is cut from the same cloth that had its origins with a number of kindred spirits from the late sixties/early seventies. The bewitchingly colourful charts of Crumb, Ligeti, Earle Brown and Berberian (C), now surely deserving of equal billing with anything hugging precious wall space in art gallery world. As sleeve note details are a little skimpy, it appears that Matt’s requirements of the players were contained on just “two hand-drawn panels”… which relayed “various open notations and graphics plus two trio sub-pieces for the performers to decipher…” The sole aim being to chip away at the improvisations, so that the resulting music builds and transforms itself, with the composer coming on not as some mad-haired tyrant shooting lightning bolts from his baton, but instead as a kindly tour guide, not too worried if a few of his flock deliberately wander off route occasionally.

A live recording, made at Jerwood Hall, LSO St. Lukes, London in 2018,, this nine-parter sees the expanded version of Ensemble Entropy on a relatively unhurried blimp ride over a series of fairly level playing fields, with the five brass/woodwinders (positioned in the gondola section naturally), calling most of the shots. Be they “Part One’s” rumbling belches from the trombone of Sara Gail Brand or the green-faced queasy blarts and snorks of “Part Seven”. For me, the most arresting fragment is the oddly named “Skelf”; which plants the spotlight beam on Moss Freed’s tweaked out-of-shape six- string and what might be a tiny army of key-wound percussive toys with drummer Matt Sanders simultaneously channelling Crimso’s Jamie Muir (minus the moustache wax and blood capsules…) and those light of touch Chris Cutlerized interludes found on “Legend”; Henry Cow’s debut sock hop.

Racking up its eighty-fifth release, you don’t really need me to tell you that Sheffield’s premier imprint has continued to maintain its strong manly grip on quality control. Orfeo 5, The Keith Tippett Octet, The Caines/Archer Axis, Weavels…and now The Entropy Ork! Another piece clicks firmly into place.