Klimt. "Avant-garde jazz drummer Rashied Ali played with John Coltrane up until his death in 1967, appearing on final recordings like The Olatunji Concert and Interstellar Space. After Coltrane's death, Ali soon formed his own quartet, with Fred Simmons on piano, Stafford James on bass violin and Carlos Ward on alto sax and flute. The quartet's first release, New Directions In Modern Music, released on Ali's own Survival Records in 1973, exploded onto the free jazz scene, influencing the likes of Don Cherry and Archie Shepp (as well as many outside the jazz idiom), becoming a kind of manifesto for avant-garde music of the period. From this point, until his death in 2009, Ali was at the heart of the New York experimental music scene, collaborating in the mid-nineties on a project called Purple Trap, with Japanese guitarist Keiji Haino and Bill Laswell."

Gizeh Records. Already Drowning, a song-cycle inspired by various myths and folktales about female water spirits, marks something of a departure for Aidan Baker. While still retaining his trademark sense of ambience and texture, the tracks on this album are much more structured and song-oriented, embracing a minimalist post-rock, slowcore style and featuring a different guest vocalist on each track. Guest vocalists include: Clara Engel, Jessica Bailiff, Valérie Niederoest and Maude Oswald (of Toboggan), Joanna Kupnicka, Geneviève Castrée (aka Ô Paon), Liz Hysen, and Carla Bozulich (of Evangelista, The Geraldine Fibbers). All words and music written by Aidan Baker (guitars, bass, flute, drums, trombone, piano, and field recordings), vocal melodies and interpretations/translations by respective singers. Additional musicians: Leah Buckareff (of Nadja -- accordion), Laura C. Bates (violin), Nick Storring (of Picastro -- cello), Carl Pace (of Beta Cloud -- trumpet), and Laura Rodie (alto and soprano saxophones). Includes download code.

Latitudes. 500 copies, blue vinyl, 180g. Aidan Baker brought British tour-mates Plurals to the studio with him. A gradual unfurling of intricate layers of sound builds and envelopes the listener over 'Dead Foxes in the Street's' 20 minutes, creating a warm and uplifting aural atmosphere. 'Turning Children into Mice' is a brooding, decidedly sinister beast, weaving a repetitive and increasingly dark threat, until it explodes into a hive of noise, and then slowly and poignantly dies a hero's death."

Latitudes. Vinyl version limited to 800 copies on 180 gram, grey colored vinyl. Comes in a foil-blocked and letter-pressed die cut sleeve.

Thrill Jockey . Gatefold sleeve. Barn Owl has always specialized in devotional darkness, pushing desert rock into previously unexplored, murky territories. V marks a shift in approach for the duo of Jon Porras and Evan Caminiti. The pair augmented their arsenal of guitars and effects with an array of electronics, vastly expanding the album's sounds and textures. Special attention was given to implied rhythms nestled within dense slow building environments, giving the album a rhythmic presence, albeit one that is buried beneath intricate layers. Theirs is a ghostly rhythm, almost beyond reach.

Feeding Tube Records. In the spring of 2011, Michael "Powderfinger" Morley was in the U.S. for a short visit. There had been some talk of doing a Gate show or two, but when he visited Western Mass., Feeding Tube Records decided to put use to his collaborative talents. He played one night at the Yod space in Florence with Kim Gordon and Bill Nace, then at Feeding Tube with Spencer Yeh and Meg Clixby. Both sets provided jumbo pleasure, and Michael managed to record the Yod set for our presentation to you. Kim and Bill were at the beginning of their duo explorations at this point. Can't even remember if they'd started using the Body/Head name yet. Regardless, the instrumental sluice -- with occasional spirit-vocals by Kim -- is similar yet quite different from the duo tactics they've since evolved. Morley's presence gives the proceedings a bit of a grungy psychedelic smear, whereas their other recordings (at least as of now) have a rather more ethereal arc. The set occurred in front of a slowed-down screening of Catherine Breillat's gorgeous 1976 film Une Vraie Jeune Fille. Feeding Tube thinks you'll agree that the music here matches the sexy surrealist power of that film frame-for-frame, or your money back. The cover, by the way, is a beautiful silkscreen designed by Morley and based on an outtake from Susan Harris' NBC program, The Golden Girls. The image was based on Bea Arthur and Betty White's characters from a season five episode entitled "Break-In." The album title is a phonetic spelling of what Ms. Arthur's character keeps chanting while attending a Madonna concert. Now you know.

Bill Nace (Guitar) and Kim Gordon (Guitar, voice). "So much more than a 'likely pairing,' this is a group which manages to illuminate the best of both players while simultaneously pushing them into fresh territory. Live shows have been accompanied by slowed films, and the pair's obsession with cinema comes across in the music itself. The pieces exist as vignettes in and of themselves, all the while presenting a full-bodied emotional narrative over the course of the record's 20 minutes. It's fascinating to hear Nace and Gordon develop these ideas, to hear relatively simple pulses, stabs, moans, and calls take shape as something almost like songs. There is a strange terror to this music. Electric shards punch through and shatter the air. There is agonizing pain living in the guitars and genuine anguish in Gordon's voice. It is some of the most courageous and emotive singing of her career. This is some of the most fantastically elastic music currently being produced, shifting form and formlessness without batting an eye. Like the best art, it exists out beyond the limits of what we can easily define. It's as pained as it is curious, as free as it is claustrophobic, full of spellbinding tension throughout, from the sparse opening of 'Turn Me On' to the intensely moving and breathtakingly sad closer, 'Where Did You Go?,' a track that's as good as anything either player has ever put to tape. It's so scary and so sad, so tender and so angry, a consummate example of what both musicians are capable of, the capstone to a sequence so satisfying one wants to just play it again. The music changes shape with each listen, behind each shadow lives another melting perspective. Beautifully pressed at 45rpm, the fullness and depth of sound and feeling come through loud and clear. This record is a complete picture, a blurry pool at night, a short story to revisit over and over again." --Matt Krefting

Otoroku. "Cafe OTO is a concert venue operating in Dalston, East London, specializing in various strains of avant-music: free jazz, song, electronics etc. OTO have been professionally recording various shows on and off since the venue opened in 2008. Their plan is to start releasing some of these recordings in vinyl editions. Available in a deluxe vinyl edition The Worse the Better is a recording of the stunning first set performed by the trio of Peter Brotzmann, Steve Noble and John Edwards at Cafe OTO in January 2010 during Brotzmann's first residency at the venue. It was also the first time this trio had played together. The concert was recorded at Cafe OTO by Shane Browne and mastered by Andrea (LUPO) Lubich at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. The 180g vinyl edition comes with two color silk-screened artwork by Peter Brotzmann printed on acid-free archival card stock and the vinyl is housed in a two color 300gsm OTO-roku stock inner sleeve."

Time-Lag Records. Same music as the book and 7" combo, but without the massive book. The 7" is a large hole 45 RPM disc with hand stamped labels. Each copy is packaged in a one-of-a-kind, hand painted, recycled 7" cover, with a double-sided, offset printed, neon green outer cover that matches the book, and with the same hand painted and metallic-gold screen-printed wrap-around title strip. Numbered edition of 111 copies.

Thrill Jockey. Califone's third album, Heron King Blues, is back on vinyl for the first time since it sold out quickly upon release in 2004. Heron King Blues is pressed on high quality virgin vinyl and packaged in an LP jacket with a fully artworked inner sleeve. Included for the first time is a free download coupon. For this recording the band set out to make a record like Captain Beefheart's Mirror Man, entering the studio with a blank canvas and laying things down quickly. The resulting songs combine the bands more pop-oriented qualities alongside their more spaced out ethereal thoughts.