L’Ensemble Infini is an intergenerational octet bringing together some of Montréal’s most active experimental musicians around around drummer Guy Thouin, a leading figure in Quebec’s counterculture (Quatuor de jazz libre du Québec, L’Infonie). With its debut album Volume ∞, the group draws on six decades of creativity to produce music that is open, dense, and fluid, where free jazz, collective improvisation, electronic textures, and kaleidoscopic collages drift together in a unified psychedelic flow.
In the early 1970s, Milan was a city defined by a restless, creative energy. Its recording studios hummed with activity day and night, populated by an elite circle of jazz-trained session musicians who split their time between tracking dates in the studio and jam sessions in the city’s clubs. Among them was Giancarlo Barigozzi, one of the most revered flautists and saxophonists of the scene, who was just then beginning to navigate the enigmatic world of library music. The Barigozzi Group – formed alongside guitarist Sergio Farina and pianist Oscar Rocchi, both fellow session musicians – became a defining ensemble of Italian library. Commissioned by publishers in Milan and Rome, they produced some of the most exquisite library LPs of all time, records that effortlessly translated the spirit of the era into sound. Of these, ‘Woman’s Colours’ stands as arguably their most iconic and celebrated achievement. Originally released in 1974 on the Fonovideo label under the artistic supervision of Fabio Fabor, the album is a cohesive, organic exploration of a single theme: a refined tribute to the female form, with every track associating a specific colour with a different part of the body. ‘Woman’s Colours’ is finally available again in its first official reissue, and for the first time in digital format. Presented by Four Flies Records.
Kaiso Power: Sound Revolution in Trinidad 1970-1980 is a collection of rare jazz, calypso and percussive gems from Trinidad and Tobago from the revolutionary generation of the 1970s, bringing radical new political vision and reclaiming ancient spiritual consciousness through music. At the dawn of the 70s a shift was taking place all around the world. The streets of Port of Spain thronged with Black Power marches, trade union demonstrations and Carnival protest bands – one epicentre in a growing global exchange of ideologies and strategies among Pan Africanist circles in Jamaica, Guyana, London, New York, Montreal, Lagos, Accra and beyond. And when the meetings were over, the revolution moved to the cramped secret dance halls, the Carnival fetes, the steelband yards. The music always had a sharp edge. Searing commentary has always been part of the various types of music in Trinidad, and in the absence of lyrics, the defiant use of the drum maintains the resistance, as well as the re-framing of the playing of European instruments to the needs of the message. These recordings are as raw as an all night Carnival jam, the horns loud, the percussion ringing out, the bass dripping with joy and rebellion. Under the modern influences is a solid rhythm, an unbroken connection to Africa, the songs and keys and cadences brought across the middle passage. These songs are a peep into the untapped treasures of a revolutionary generation, looking at the world with fresh eyes and believing that music was a central part of the mission to build consciousness and regain confidence.
Following on from his debut album, Miles Spilsbury returns to New Dawn with Spirit Level. A new project in collaboration with close friend Gorse Panshawe (Slugabed – who also produced Miles Spilsbury’s first album Light Manoeuvres). Recorded over one weekend in a weaving shed in Frome, in the English countryside. Surrounded by reels of yarn, they explored with saxophones, flutes, dusty old keyboards & drum machines. The resulting record conjures the murk and moss of Forestland and grounds with grooves from the Bongo setting on a Casio keyboard. Jake Long added mallet drums from his London studio to round off the album.
Released in 1979, Tete Mbambisa’s ‘Did You Tell Your Mother’ delivers the ultimate blend of African groove with American modal grace, making it one of the all-time classic albums of South African jazz. With Mbambisa presenting original compositions at the piano alongside Basil ”Mannenberg” Coetzee on tenor sax and flute, the acoustic quartet featured here is rounded out by Zulu Bidi from the band Batsumi on bass locking in with Dollar Brand drummer Monty Weber. This 2026 reissue presents a flat transfer of the master tapes with album artwork restored using illustrator Hargreaves Ntukwana’s original ink drawing.
Enrico Rava’s second solo record, recorded in Milan in January 1973 and released on the German BASF label, is nothing less than a cornerstone of Italian jazz-rock. The lineup is killer: John Abercrombie on guitar, Bruce Johnson on bass, Chip White on drums. Four musicians operating at the absolute peak of early seventies fusion energy – electric, cosmopolitan, burning with that particular fire that only existed in that brief window when jazz met rock and nobody knew the rules yet. Abercrombie, already on his way to becoming one of the most distinctive voices in electric jazz guitar, delivers some of his most ferocious early work here. White’s drumming is relentless, pushing the music forward with an intensity that never lets up.
Modular synthesizers meet a crazy saxophone, a deranged accordion, a piano and a violin in an one-of-a kind album playing with free-jazz aesthetics in an experimental and really weird album. 100% instrumental and deconstructivism, ”Pânzele albe” (”The white curtains”) is a daring encounter with off-beat sounds and melodies, courtesy of Anghel Mailat (synths) and the multi-instrumentalist Gabriel Almași.
ep into the wild heart of New York’s underground avant-garde jazz scene with ‘Voyage from Jericho’. Recorded in 1974, release in 1975, this landmark session finds the Charles Tyler Ensemble pushing boundaries with fearless improvisation, deep spiritual yearning, and a raw emotional fire. Joined by top-tier collaborators — including Arthur Blythe, Earl Cross, Ronnie Boykins, and Steve Reid — Tyler shapes a sound that fuses avant-garde intensity with soulful depth, creating a powerful celebration of freedom and expression. This is music that demands attention and rewards deep listening. Whether you’re a devoted explorer of the avant-garde or a curious listener seeking something beyond the mainstream, Voyage from Jericho offers a journey both challenging and transcendent.
Brazilian avant-jazz vanguardists Grupo Um celebrate their 50th anniversary, sharing a second previously lost 1970s album from the vaults. Nineteen Seventy Seven (titled after the year it was recorded) is another rip-roaring instrumental fusion treasure from the band which spawned from within Hermeto Pascoal’s famed mid-1970s São Paulo collective. Like their debut album Starting Point, Grupo Um’s Nineteen Seventy Seven was recorded when Brazil’s military dictatorship was at its most repressive. “There were no open doors to those who dreamt to be protagonists in creative instrumental music”, remembers drummer Zé Eduardo Nazario, “even popular composers and singers had to submit their songs to censors and many records were banned and confiscated from the stores.”
The Modern Sound Quartet represents one of the most treasured, yet least documented, outfits in the history of Italian library music. An exceptional studio band of session musicians with a formidable groove, they released only a handful of albums under this name in the second half of the 1970s. However, their sound indelibly shaped dozens of “invisible” soundtracks, often without ever receiving an official credit on the back sleeve. Led by pianist and composer Oscar Rocchi, and featuring Andrea Surdi (drums), Luigi Cappellotto (bass), and Ernesto Verardi (guitar), the quartet embodies the more jazz-funk, cinematic, and irresistibly groovy side of the 1970s Milan scene. This boxset celebrates their funkiest side – an irresistible combination of incandescent drum breaks, tight grooves, and high-intensity fusion passages – bringing together some of the most sought-after tracks from legendary LPs.
Leonardo Marletta’s astounding ‘Percussioni ed effetti’ was originally released by Cenacolo in 1983 and is the one and only album of the Italian composer. Other than a handful of compositions which appear on other Library albums from the era, very little about him remains known, adding an air of tragedy for what might have been, as the first sounds of the album ring through the air.
‘Vibe Ride’ is the sixth release of Adam Rudolph’s Hu Vibrational project and marks his 60th release as a leader or co-leader. “With every record, the goal is to explore new creative territory,” explains Rudolph. Vibe Ride continues a deeper exploration of a trance-like groove and a conceptual framework known as Sonic Mandala. This album marks the most complete realization of that idea, partly due to the group’s experience touring beforehand. That time on the road helped to refine ideas and strengthen musical chemistry. The recording process unfolded organically—likely due to the long-standing collaboration within ensembles like Go: Organic Orchestra and Moving Pictures, where the musicians have developed a deep familiarity with the shared musical language.”
Ajomasé is the groundbreaking debut album by legendary Nigerian percussionist Gasper Lawal. Originally released in 1980 on his own label CAP, Strut are proud to now bring this unique album back to the racks. Lawal’s style was forged through decades of high-level percussion work with the likes of Stephen Stills, Barbra Streisand, George Clinton & Funkadelic, Manfred Mann, Alexis Korner, Vangelis and Ginger Baker’s Air Force band. Dissatisfied with existing genre labels and production norms, Lawal began recording his own album in 1976 at Vangelis’ own studio in London’s Marble Arch before switching to long, drawn-out night shifts at Surrey Sound Studios, using downtime between The Police’s sessions for Outlandos D’Amour. Lawal meticulously self-produced, composed, and overdubbed the album over four years, assembling an elite group of musicians from both Nigeria and the UK. The instruments used were often hand-built, including a powerful one-of-a-kind drum carved deep in the Nigerian bush. “This music is not about trends, about what is commercial or a “sound” of a particular moment,” explains Lawal, “it is about music to be felt, that gives pleasure. It is nurturing and meditative.”
PRAED return to Discrepant with the album ‘The Dictionary of Lost Meanings’. Known for their signature blend of Egyptian Shaabi, free jazz and improvisation, the Lebanese duo behind PRAED – Raed Yassin and Paed Conca – now assemble a full orchestra for the second time taking the music to a deeper, rooted level. The duo revisit their unique blend of Arabic heritage and free jazz sensibilities with an album that keeps pushing further into strange and unexpected directions.
”The Happening” by Tomorrow Comes The Harvest is a provocative confrontation. It’s a challenge or dare to the idea that music can be useful if we are able to experience it. I would imagine that to many, music having an objective beyond the listener doesn’t make sense because the general thought is that Music is made for us to consume, to make us remember, to influence us and to make us feel something. The Happening does all those things but much more.
Strut presents Mulatu Plays Mulatu, the first major studio album in over 10 years from the father of Ethio-jazz, Mulatu Astatke. Featuring masterful new arrangements of some of his classic compositions, Mulatu Plays Mulatu finds Mulatu revisiting the sounds that helped to change the face of Ethiopian music during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The album was recorded between London and Addis Ababa, working with his long-standing UK band, a tight, intuitive ensemble honed through years of live performance, alongside cultural musicians resident at his Jazz Village club in Addis. Mulatu Plays Mulatu realises Mulatu’s long-term vision of Ethio-jazz, intricately balancing Western jazz arrangements with the rich sounds of traditional Ethiopian instruments including the krar, masenqo, washint, kebero and begena. Throughout the album, he reshapes familiar material with rich textures, expanded improvisations and a deepened rhythmic complexity, creating a body of work that feels as vital and contemporary as it does steeped in tradition. Familiar compositions like ‘Yekermo Sew’, ‘Netsanet’ and the celebratory ‘Kulun’ are reinvented here as elegant big band performances.
Group Modular breaks the 3-year silence and launches a new series of 7inch releases, powered by Confused Machines and Delights labels. The first 45 features two familiar tunes, previously available only on short-run (and immediately sold-out) lathe-cut releases.
Kimatika, the 3rd album by the Slovenian audio-visual trio Etceteral, is a visceral plunge into the raw undercurrents of futuristic jazz, motoric propulsion, free improv and elastic compositions. A growling baritone sax weaves through pulsating electronics and restless drums; the bass frequencies dense and cavernous. It is an arresting and thick tapestry of texture and tension, where noise and polyrhythms collide with urgent, melodic riffs.
An electrified meeting of minds, Candy Girl is a lost 1975 session by jazz pianist Mal Waldron, recorded in Paris with core members of the mighty Lafayette Afro Rock Band, the American funk unit who had made France their home and whose deep grooves would later be mined by generations of hip-hop producers.
The Hipodrome Of Music 