No Business Records has just released a cache of historic material dating back from the years of the Carter Administration up through the present day. Hang on tight, as the sounds are free and easy!
Sam Rivers plays piano as well as tenor/soprano saxes with Joe Daley on tuba/euphonium, drummer Thurman Barker and Dave Holland strumming and bowing his bass or cello for two long “songs” of improvisations at this 1979 Hamburg, Germany gig. The first 18 minute job has Holland strumming to Rivers’ dark tenor and rambling rhythm team, while the 38 minute opus gives Daley a lot of solo space, Rivers a chance to display his delicate and shadowed ivories and Holland to bend and snap the strings. Rolling along like Old Man Rivers.
Katarsis4 consists of the four sax team of Arminas Bizys/as-bs, Algridas Janonis/as-hpipe, Danielius Pancerovas/bs-as and Kazimeieras Jusinskas/ss-as for a single tune in 2019 that on paper looks intimidating, but is actually filled with dramatic and textured dreams. Sure, there is lots of reed sucking sounds, cathartic squeals and squawks and eerie pads popping but the thunderous baritones veer through the clickety clack with dexterity. A walk through murky mud.
Nate Wooley/tp, Liudas Mockunas/cbcl-sss-ts, Barry Guy and Arkadijus Gotesmanas/dr-perc deliver a 2019 studio three song cycle with “Multa Dies” including trumpet gasps, tenor sax mouthpiece exercises and veering sopranino. Some African percussion leads into muted trumpet and contrabass clarinet on “Multa Nox” while guttural mouthpiece sucking clears out all 
of the spit on the concise “Multa Lux”. Are their music teachers rolling in their graves?
Bassist Barry Guy delivers six solo pieces during a 2019 concert that sounds like his strings could use some tuning and tightening up on the plucking “Comet” and Strumming “Oscillating”. A folkishly bowed “Old Earth Home” sounds like he’s giving mouth to mouth resuscitation to his bass, while Indian tones are heard on “Barehead”. A breathing bass?
Guitarist Masayuki Jojo Takayanagi, bassist Nobuyoshi Ino and pianist Masabumi PUU Kikuchi mix and match trios and duos for five songs, Takayanagi’s koto-like strings create dots and dashes on the spacious “Trio III” while getting bluesy on “Duo II”. 
There are electronic effects and jabs interacting on “Duo I” and picks and pulses on “Trio II”. Much sounds like that famous traditional Asian piece “Tu-ning”.
The RED Trio of Rodrigo Pinheiro/b, Hernani Faustino/b and Gabriel Ferrandini is supplemented by the 14 piece Celebration Band on this 2018 concert at Teatro Maria Matos for 3 songs. Pinheiro’s 33 minute “Corrente” has a mix of cacophonous horns and more noodles than a Japanese soup kitchen, while stark and spacious piano work mixes with dark reeds on “Ferrandini’s “Mais Vale” with the trio showing its wares on the 42 minute “Ditirambo”. As graspable and firm as mercury.
Duets by drummer Sabu Toyozumi and Mats Gustafsson on baritone sax, fluteophone and flute are found at a 2018 concert in Chiba Japan for four songs. Both get a chance at soloing, with Toyozume rumbling for 15 minutes on “Red View of Mt Fuji” and Gustafsson wheezing through Manga by Hokusai for 8. Together, you get a tentative bari sax and drums on “Sunflower” and pads forming percussion along with percolating tones and duck calls on “Woman With A Cat” while mice scurry on the floor during the 20 minute “For Ever-Advancing Artistry”. Don’t bother with the Manhasset sheet music holder.
Guitarist Derek Bailey gets together in Japan for a 1987 duet concert with soprano saxist Mototeru Takagi for four improvisations. Long and big tones team with guitar effects and scales on “Duo I” with some Asian tunings and reed like chirps on “Duo II”. Was that a melody that I heard in “Duo III”? Well, I got absorbed and eaten alive, never to be seen again by the time you get to the reed effects and shrill pitch of “Duo IV”. The cats were meowing that night!
Frank Gratkowski/as-cl-fl, Achim Kaufmann/p, Wilbert de Joode/b and Tony Buck/dr-perc are recorded at a concert in Cologne for six dark etudes. Brooding and bowed bass teams with a flailing alto sax on “Biomes” and rustling sandpaper makes you scratch during the chirps and pops on “Roughly Parallel”. Stark piano and floating flute make up “tenuous Links Beyond” and rustling of wind through tumbling tumbleweeds roll on for “Tangible Thin Threads” and the tweeting screams of “Small Ways, Chasmal”. Not exactly a camp fire singalong.
Teamed with the Lithuanian Young Composer’s Orchestra, guitarist Juozas Milasius, pianist Tomas Kutavicius and drummer/vocalist Dalius Naujokaitis deliver four songs in a Swiss festival. There is much guitar work sounding like Robert Fripp on the distorted “String Walker” and voices that verbalize sounds like “Ch” on the quizzical “Sailor’s Nightmare”. Shrill cacophonies are taking place on “Play Me” while a moment of calm takes place before shrill reeds take over on “Reflections Nebula”. Was this the time to step out for refreshments?