Brian Lavelle

A semi-regular shout-out from me about the brilliant Standard Ebooks (@standardebooks@mastodon.social) the "volunteer-driven project that produces new editions of public domain ebooks that are lovingly formatted, open source, free of U.S. copyright restrictions, and free of cost."

Their books really are a joy to read.

https://standardebooks.org/

#Ebooks #StandardEbooks #FreeEbooks #CopyrightFreeEbooks #DRMFree

#FensterFreitag

#SilentSunday

Walked along the coastal path today for 8 miles or so and found myself in this quaint Templar preceptory.

Bonus: I found an old whistle. I wonder what it sounds like…

#QuisEstIsteQuiVenit #OhWhistleAndIllComeToYouMyLad #MRJames #Fife #FifeCoastalPath

Do you ever find the imagery of an album cover draws you in, insisting (perhaps quietly) that you really should hear the music within?

Neigen, from 2021, by the French improvising quartet of Nicolas Souchal, Michael Nick, Daunik Lazro & Jean-Luc Cappozzo did that to me.

Some of the music is as texturally mysterious and haunting as the photograph that adorns the cover. Some of it is terse and difficult. But it's all very rewarding - four improvisers listening intently to one another’s slightest movements in sound, striving for something magical in the distance beyond the mists.

The release is on the wonderful label Ayler Records. If you like improvised musics, it's well worth a look.

#NicolasSouchal #MichaelNick #DaunikLazro #JeanLucCappozzo #AylerRecords #ImprovisedMusic @improvisedmusic@fedigroups.social

https://ayler-records.bandcamp.com/album/neigen

I'm giving #XMPP another go for messaging. Do you use it?

Feel free to say hello if you do ->> xmpp:bl72@movim.eu

Happy 77th birthday to the one-and-only Fred Frith, born #OTD in 1949. Unique in the field, he has experimental music he has produced a staggering body of work, both solo and in collaboration with so many others, across almost 60 years.

It was a real highlight to see him live in Glasgow last May: the sense of space, the sense of play, the sense of reaching beyond.

#FredFrith #HenryCow #ElectricGuitar #ExperimentalMusic #ImprovisedMusic #NewMusic #ExtendedTechniques @ExperimentalMusic@fedigroups.social @improvisedmusic@fedigroups.social

A nice charity bookshop find today. I stumbled on this first edition hardback of Norrie Bissell’s great wee collection of poems, Slate, Sea and Sky: A Journey from Glasgow to the Isle of Luing (Luath Press, 2007). As well as Norrie’s wonderful poetry, the book also has a vivid array of photographs by the late Oscar Marzaroli.

#NormanBissell #NorrieBissell #ScottishPoetry #ScottishPoets #OscarMarzaroli #Glasgow #IsleOfLuing #Geopoetics #OpenWorld #Bookstodon @bookstodon@fedigroups.social

Fantastic gig by the duo of Eddie Prévost and Silvan Schmid at The Glad Café in Glasgow this afternoon.

Sadly double bassist Tom Wheatley was absent from their usual trio, but the two solo sets followed by a brilliant duo performance were the stuff of the elemental. Schmid’s sharpened breath and saliva cut through the earth-wired heat of Prévost’s mesmerising playing.

So wonderful to hear them both perform in the intimacy of this great venue, where I was lucky enough to snag a seat right at the front.

#EddiePrévost #SilvanSchmid #ImprovisedMusic #FreeImprovisation #TrumpetAndDrums #TheGladCafé @improvisedmusic@fedigroups.social

Herne Wood, Kenneth White
—from The Cold Wind of Dawn (Jonathan Cape, 1966)

#KennethWhite #ScottishPoets #ScottishPoetry #Geopoetics

I’m a big fan of Helen’s work. Her stories are clever, atmospheric and often scare-filled, which is already a powerful combination. And then when you add in her exquisitely realistic and researched sense of place, the terror only increases exponentially.

There aren’t too many great writers furthering the pleasing terror agenda of M. R. James, and making it their own, but Helen’s surely one of them—and one of the best.

#SupernaturalHorror #GhostStories #Horror #SupernaturalLiterature #Books #Bookstodon #WomenInHorror @bookstodon@fedigroups.social @helengrantsays@mas.to

#SilentSunday

Delighted to see that Rebecca Gransden’s remarkable novel Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group was joint winner of this year’s Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize (with Ghost Driver by Nell Osborne).

Gransden’s fiction is well worth seeking out, and her publisher for this book, Tangerine Press, does fantastic work. The book itself is hard to describe: a fractured, dystopian story of a young woman’s journey through a landscape in a state of post-apocalyptic collapse. Gransden’s prose is elevated by a dense and intense poetry unlike anything you’ve probably read before.

https://thetangerinepress.com/FICTION/RG-FCTFTTG/

#RebeccaGransden #TangerinePress #FiguresCrossingTheFieldTowardsTheGroup #Books #Bookstodon @bookstodon@fedigroups.social

#NowPlaying Arcana 'The Last Wave' CD (DIW, 1996)

Can it really be 30 years since this brilliant album was released by a superlative “power trio” (for want of a better expression) of improvisors comprising Derek Bailey, Bill Laswell and Tony Williams?

Williams’ room-filling drumming is such a brilliant foil for the shards of Bailey’s explosive electric guitar attack. So sad that the former died the following year, aged just 51.

More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Wave_(album)

#DerekBailey #BillLaswell #TonyWilliams #ArcanaTheLastWave #ImprovisedMusic @improvisedmusic@fedigroups.social

@Masterofsorrow@beige.party

I'm using Ivory on iOS, too. It uses a subscription model, but I think it's worth it. It's the best of any iOS app I've used and, although I've tried multiple other apps, I'd find it hard to stop using Ivory. It's particularly good on muting hashtags and other filter. All very seamless and customisable.

#scatterArchive

>> releases for APRIL 2026 <<

#ImprovisedMusic #ExperimentalMusic

> Friday 03 April <
Lawrence Casserley, Viv Corringham, Yoko Miura
'At Nether Edge'
>voice/piano&melodica/live signal processing trio recorded October 2025 at Mick Beck's Nether Edge Club in Sheffield

> Monday 06 April <
Inge Weatherhead Breistein + Nils Are Drønen
'No Need for a Driver's License'
>Norwegian tenor sax/drums duo recorded December 2025 at Studio 109, Bergen, Norway

> Friday 10 April <
Olaf Rupp
'Berlin Eiskeller'
>solo electric guitar improvisations recorded between December 2025 and March 2026 in Berlin

> Monday 13 April <
Pablo Elinbaum + Fernando Feria
'Antes del mapa, el ruido'
>prepared guitar/live electronics duo improv from Argentina/Mexico recorded during July 2024 in Parque Chas, Buenos Aires, Argentina

> Friday 17 April <
Dave Tucker
'More Crimes'
›a continuation of Dave Tucker's multi-intrumental improv constructions - the follow-up to last year's 'Crimes Against the Avant-Garde' - https://scatterarchive.bandcamp.com/album/crimes-against-the-avant-garde

> Monday 20 April <
Lol Coxhill, Susanna Ferrar, Sylvia Hallett
'Brixton 1982'
>1982 set rescued from Sue's cassette archive - violins/voice and soprano sax

> Friday 24 April <
Semay Wu + Seth Bennett
'Form Forms Forms'
>digital version of a soon-to-be-released CD - launch for all formats at The Glad Cafe in Glasgow - https://www.thegladcafe.co.uk/events/e82d6fof-08e2-40f8-96d9-f72649c50c80

> Monday 27 April <
BAGMAN [Sture Ericson, Raymond Strid, Pat Thomas
'Playgrounds'
>excellent 2018 set from this well-seasoned improv trio of alto sax&clarinet parts/piano/drums recorded at Brötz in Göteborg, Sweden

+++
...
BE GENEROUS / PAY WHAT YOU CAN AFFORD
*ALL MONEY GOES TO THE ARTISTS*

@improvisedmusic@fedigroups.social @ExperimentalMusic@fedigroups.social

I was just looking in my #Jellyfin server and see that I have 296 hours and 42 minutes of the music of #Celer on there. And that’s only music apparently released between 2014* and 2021. I haven't bought anything by Will Long's project in the last 5 years (sorry Will).

Does this mean I have about another 750 hours of Celer to catch up on since 2021…?

*EDIT: I got the dates wrong of what I have. It's about 296 albums too. Jeez. I love their music, though. During lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, it was an oasis of calm/sunlit balm in a cold and anxious desert.

EDIT 2: this doesn't includes collaborations. :welp:

#TooMuchMusic #NotEnoughMusic #AmbientMusic #ElectronicMusic

#NowPlaying Keith Rowe, Kjell Bjørgeengen - A Thought For Two CD (true blanking, 2024)

A lovely, intimate recording of Rowe (guitar, electronics, drawing) and Bjørgeengen (video, Dave Jones synthesizer), captured at Experimental Intermedia, New York City on 5 December 2010. The air comes alive with gently fizzing buzzes, the waves flit short or long, the walls awash with energy. And it’s all on a great label, too.

#ImprovisedMusic #Improvisation #ExperimentalMusic #KeithRowe #KjellBjørgeengen #TrueBlanking @improvisedmusic@fedigroups.social

https://trueblanking.bandcamp.com/album/a-thought-for-two