This June 19, Danish pianist Ole Matthiessen, one of the most inventive voices in Scandinavian jazz, celebrates his 80th birthday with the release of Subcurrents on Storyville Records-a remarkable compilation spanning more than five decades of musical exploration. The album brings together seven performances from 1968 to 2025, offering a rare glimpse into some alternative, improvisational currents that have defined Matthiessen's career. From the early energy of the Poul Ehlers Quartet in 1968, featuring the rare collaboration with free-jazz drummer Bo de Richelieu and a young Jesper Zeuthen, to his contributions in Erling Kroner's Quintet in 1970, Matthiessen's pianism has always blended melodic sensitivity with a restless curiosity. The album also includes the electrifying Turkish-inspired jazz of Atilla Engin Group in 1981, where Matthiessen fuses complex rhythms with the swinging spirit of jazz, as well as boundary-pushing improvisations with Global Units in 2011, incorporating electronics and experimental textures. Later recordings, such as Testmann Jazz in 2023, highlight Matthiessen's lyrical side, paying homage to Ben Webster while demonstrating his enduring command of ensemble interplay. Framing the album are two solo improvisations, "Subcurrent 1" and "Subcurrent 2," recorded in 2025 at The Village Studio, capturing the pianist at his most spontaneous-exploring sound, touch, and flow in real time with no rehearsals or retakes. Subcurrents is more than a retrospective; it is a journey through the subtle undercurrents of jazz and the threads connecting tradition, experimentation, and collaboration across decades. Produced, remastered, and annotated by Matthiessen himself, the album presents both longtime fans and new listeners with an intimate portrait of a musician whose adventurous spirit remains undiminished at 80.

Previously unreleased recordings of Sweden's most legendary jazz groups and artists, curated from the Swedish Jazz Archives

Contemporary music for flute and organ. Evelin Degen plays flutes from from alto to bass

Storyville Records is proud to present Danish pianist and composer Carsten Dahl's new album, In the Middle of Nothing - to Palle Mikkelborg, on April 11, 2025. In the Middle of Nothing is a deeply personal tribute to one of Scandinavian jazz's most visionary figures. This recording is both a celebration and a meditation, honoring the legendary Palle Mikkelborg, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and spiritual guide to generations of jazz musicians. The album consists of 7 tracks, all arranged and composed by Carsten Dahl. Mikkelborg's influence spans decades, transcending borders and genres. His sound is otherworldly, his approach both intimate and expansive. He has spent a lifetime exploring the space between sound and silence - seeking, as Dahl describes, "the sublime sound of nothing in everything and the sound of everything in nothing." With In the Middle of Nothing, Carsten Dahl channels this philosophy into a deeply atmospheric and immersive listening experience. The album carries a special dimension, as Mikkelborg himself participates alongside his wife, the renowned harpist Helen Davies. Together, they join Carsten Dahl Ensemble in a sonic exploration where the boundaries between composition and improvisation dissolve, creating a musical universe that is at once ethereal and profoundly grounded. The album also features contributions from a slew of prominent names in Scandinavian jazz, including saxophonist Fredrik Lundin, bassist Nils Bo Davidsen, drummer Thomas Pasborg, a string sextet, and BBC Children's Choir. Palle Mikkelborg's trumpet playing is deeply rooted in both jazz tradition and Nordic storytelling, drawing as much from American pioneers like Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong as from the legacy of Carl Nielsen, H.C. Andersen, and Soren Kierkegaard. His music is elusive, poetic, and rich with mystery, never adhering strictly to genre but instead embracing time, space, and silence as integral elements of musical expression. Carsten Dahl, one of Denmark's most innovative and adventurous musicians, is known for his boundless imagination and fearless exploration of sound. With an unparalleled sense of improvisation, he bridges the worlds of jazz, classical, and avantgarde, constantly searching for new expressions and emotional depth. In the Middle of Nothing - to Palle Mikkelborg is a testament to the power of listening, of presence, and of music's ability to transcend the tangible world. It's an album for those who seek music that exists beyond boundaries, where jazz meets folklore, and where silence meets sound.

In September 2023, PMP is proud to release Anthony Braxton's "Four Compositions (Wesleyan) 2013", a limited deluxe 4-CD box set documenting the one-time meeting of an all-star trio featuring the legendary saxophonist and composer alongside Roland Dahinden (trombone), and Hildegard Kleeb (piano). This is the first album of the new Czech label PMP. Art Lange describes the impetus for the session in the liner notes: The 4 CD set box Four Compositions (Wesleyan) 2013 is built on the latest evolutional stage of Anthony Braxton's lifelong conceptualization and personalization of notation called Falling River Music. Braxton's systematic approach balances methodology and mythology, utilizing a variety of graphic designs as symbolic and representational characterizations of his sound vision. The scores incorporate numerical and alphabetical equations, abstract diagrams, and sections of conventional notation, along with spontaneously conceived, painted gestures connected to a web-like pattern of shorthand. In this album, Braxton explores the concept of "aesthetic networking "by having three musicians play from different scores simultaneously, creating a unique blend of impressions. The collaborative efforts of Roland Dahinden (trombone) and Hildegard Kleeb (piano) bring an intimate awareness of Braxton's language types and transformational procedures, resulting in rotating voicings, morphing tonalities, and labyrinthine counterpoint. Braxton's characteristic reed colors and personal lyricism are also showcased, along with occasional electronic elements, to enhance the overall sonic experience.

Since their founding in 2007, the Madrid-based ensemble Sigma Project has premiered more than 85 works and introduced hundreds more to audiences from Teatro alla Scala in Milan to Teatro Col�n in Buenos Aires. Their commitment to commissioning new works is the saxophone quartet's parallel to the Kronos Quartet. Juan Antonio Cu�llar's Cuatro Artificios is a four-movement work that follows the classical structure of the quartet or symphony (Allegro-Adagio-Scherzo-Allegro Finale) and draws on both Baroque and early 20th-century techniques. Each movement is an artificio: a skillful and inventive creation. From Fanfarrias (Fanfares) and it's rhythmic ostinatos and canon to Tocatas (Tocattas), a dizzying moto continuo culminating in an explosive finale. Carolina Noguera Palau's C�nticos del Azar utilizes extended techniques to evoke the chirim�as caucanas (flute-led ensembles from Cauca), while also introducing dance-like rhythmic patterns that evoke Cali's vibrant dance culture, emphasized by expressive markings in the score such as con sabor (with spice), sonero (in the style of son music), or movido (swinging). The title of Rodolfo Acosta's Pidiendo agua, tra�an le�a (Asking for water, they brought firewood) is drawn from The First New Chronicle and Good Government, a 1615 Peruvian chronicle describing how chapetones (newly arrived Spaniards) and Indigenous Peruvians were often caught in linguistic misunderstandings. The piece's form is conceived as a series of unrelated episodes that challenge monothematic development. Instead, the episodes function as what Acosta calls "single isles" that one must "visit" without pretending to understand them through the same logic. They are meant to be grasped in their uniqueness. The collaboration between the Spanish ensemble Sigma Project and the Colombian composers featured on this album evokes the narrative behind the work. This collaboration is a 21st-century update of the encounter between the Spanish and the Abya Yala people (the Americas)-an encounter rooted not in conquest, but in mutual recognition and respect for difference.

1. A Pierre. Dell'azzurro silenzio, inquietum (1985) for contrabass ?ute in G, contrabass clarinet in B ?at and live electronics 2. Das atmende Klarsein, fragmente (1980/87) for bass flute, magnetic tape and live electronics 3. Musiche per Manz� (1969) for magnetic tape (acousmatic version) 4. Roberto Fabbriciani: A "Omaggio a Luigi Nono" (2006) for piccolo, tape and live electronics Roberto Fabbriciani, flutes, piccolo (1, 2, 4) Ulrich Krieger, double-bass clarinet (1) Alvise Vidolin, live electronics, sound direction Alessandro Fiordelmondo, live electronics assistant Luigi Nono (1924 -1990) was a great innovator in the use of spatialization of sound and experimentation with performance space, non-linear time and the collapsing between sound and silence. Beginning in 1959, he distanced himself from serial orthodoxy and the Ferienkurse compositional scene. His new works reflected a concern in political and cultural events and introduced the use of tape and electroacoustic technology. His compositional process was increasingly involved with specific performers, whom he chose for their tone and expressive characteristics. This trust reflects on Nono's interest in collaboration, developing the idea that traditional musical notation is limited and cannot reproduce the complexity of performance he reached with every performer. This recording represents one of Nono's most fruitful collaborations, the one he developed with flutist Roberto Fabbriciani during the 1980s. The track list presented here - selected by Fabbriciani and Alvise Vidolin - explores Nono's music as it is defined by space (and/or the acoustic space) rather than time - the auditory impression of a labyrinthine acoustic environment in which the works seem to ?oat on the threshold of sound and silence and seem to fluctuate from one place to another. The creative process of A Pierre. Dell'azzurro silenzio, inquietum (1985) took place during rehearsals for the ?rst performance of Prometeo. Tragedia dell'ascolto (Venice, 1984). Fabbriciani recalls suggesting to Nono that he should write a work, based on section VIII of Io, frammento dal Prometeo because he felt that the live electronic potential explored in that work had not been completely exploited. The interplay between flute, clarinet and live electronics and their timbral fusion or a continuum of timbre, are at the core of the compositional process. Once the live electronic manipulation of sound moves above the threshold of silence, the listener should no longer be able to detect whether a given sound heard was produced by one of the two performers or reproduced by electronic/digital equipment. Das Atmende Klarsein, fragmente is a reduced version of Nono's work for small choir, bass flute soloist and live electronics. It is the first composition of the 1980s which led to Prometeo and the first outcome of the intense collaboration between Fabbriciani and Nono. In the original piece, Nono composed two distinct worlds, one of choir, the other of bass flute. As they never perform together, the bass flute part later became a solo piece after undergoing changes, cuts and transformations with the various performances by Fabbriciani (this is typical of Nono's work in progress). Musiche per Manz�, for magnetic tape (1969), was created for a short documentary that shows the work that Italian sculptor Giacomo Manz� did to realize the bronze doors of St. Francis church in Rotterdam. Space and spatialization are only illusory in the original version of the work, which antedates Nono's live electronics research. But space is so deliberate here that this piece is suitable to live electronics interpretations. Alvise Vidolin re-interprets Musiche per Manz� using the original mono version published by Ricordi, with a multichannel 5.1 surround sound system. A "Omaggio a Luigi Nono"is Fabbriciani's tribute to his collaboration and friendship with Luigi Nono. The tape part has been recorded by Fabbriciani at the Experimental Studio of the Heinrich-Strobel Stiftung in Freiburg, the same studio where he worked with Nono in his important sound research for a decade. It contains the natural acoustic sounds of the piccolo. It explores this instrument and reflects Fabbriciani's research on extended yet simple sounds. A "Omaggio a Luigi Nono"is also an homage to the last years of their friendship, which culminated in the piece Post-praeludium n. 3 "BAAB-ARR". "We got as far as the Post-praeludium n. 3 "BAAB-ARR", structured on a single note with all it's possible universes. After the performance in the Kammersaal of the Berlin Philharmonie on 4th September 1988 Gigi [Luigi] smiled and said to me, "the next time I'll write less!" (Fabbriciani, 1999). The score is so non-existent and deprived of any meaningful indications to any flutists but Fabbriciani that the Committee for the Edition of the Works of Luigi Nono set up by Casa Ricordi has decided to withdraw it from the catalogue. A "Omaggio a Luigi Nono"by Fabbriciani reflects both his own research on extended techniques, and Nono's reduction to the essential nature of sound and music. The acoustic part interacts with the tape part made with prerecorded piccolo sounds. The assembling, mixing and spatialization of the recorded sounds is conceived by Alvise Vidolin. Liner notes by Laura Zattra.

Gerald Eckert's third release on Mode is a 2-CD set of mostly works for orchestra, often with electronics. Eckert says: "I am fascinated by orchestral works containing the structures of chamber music. For me, the definition of orchestra is not characterized by it's large scale, but genuinely through it's individual voices." His music explores the marginal edges of sound, fractures in tonal constructs, crystalline solidification and instabilities which (for him) always symbolize existential dimensions. Liner notes by Egbert Hiller, in English, German and French. Gerald Eckert, (b. 1960), studied composition with Nicolaus A. Huber and electronic composition with Dirk Reith. He has received numerous prestigious prizes including the C. Gulbenkian Prize, Portugal 1993; the Kranichstein Prize, Darmstadt 1996; 1st prize in Bourges 2003, and 1st prize at the Stuttgart Composition Competition 2005. Top ensembles have performed his music including the NDR-Philharmonie, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Aventure, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble SurPlus, and Musikfabrik.

Contemporary chamber works inspired by Klee, Trakl, Beethoven & Art Informel

Formed in 2020 and comprised of veterans of New York City's vital contemporary music community, the Anzu Quartet - Olivia de Prato, Ashley Bathgate, Ken Thomson and Karl Larson - is an ensemble dedicated to the music of our time and the recent canon. The quartet's first full-length studio release of premiere recordings features new works by Thomson (?) and fellow composer Anna Webber (?, which lends the album it's title). Relentless, kinetic and emotive, Thomson's ? reflects the pace and anxieties of modern life, while Webber's ? explores the liminal space between classical contemporary music and experimental jazz. Both works, composed between 2019 and 2022, highlight the quartet's prowess as interpreters and performers of demanding, modern repertoire, and fulfill Anzu's mission of commissioning and promoting new repertoire for the instrumentation of Messiaen's elemental "Quartet for the End of Time," a new recording of which the group will release later in 2025.

Rakhi Singh is a violinist, music director, curator and composer based in the UK. In 2016 she co-founded Manchester Collective, a progressive group that the BBC describes as "transforming all our perceptions of what a classical music group can be."

"Sabkha" is the first single from Singh's full-length debut album Purnima (coming October 27) — a stirring stream-of-consciousness foray into signal processing and multi-tracking for violin, with Singh's own wordless vocals adding to the hypnotic mood. Purnima, which translates literally from the Sanskrit as "she who is the full moon,” is not only Singh's middle name — it's also a source of spiritual inspiration that has guided her own musical journey on her chosen instrument. Interpreting works by composers Alex Groves ("Trace I"), Emily Hall ("Outshifts"), Julia Wolfe ("LAD") and Michael Gordon ("Light Is Calling"), and augmenting them with unearthly electronic and electro-acoustic textures, Singh creates a haunting dreamworld of melody and sound that doesn't quite emit a completely "classical" aura — but instead suggests an altogether new one.

Composer, violinist, and NYC impresario David Handler composes acoustic and electronic music that has been described by the New York Times as "eerie and superbly wrought... exploring polarities of light and dark, the sacred and the profane." This attraction to juxtaposition is also evident in Handler's role as co-founder of (Le) Poisson Rouge (LPR), the boundary-breaking downtown New York venue that has opened doors for his fellow performers and connected audiences with unheard music since 2008. Life Like Violence explores the everyday tumult of the mind: fear, whim, rage, pain, fancy. As Handler puts it: "this is the sound of my psyche." It's music that attacks itself, eating itself from the inside out. Ideas invade and gnaw at each other. They undermine, taunt, assault, exalt, and tease. Physical gestures disrupt long narratives whose melodies are obscured, revealed, decayed, destroyed, and mourned. What emerges is a broken beauty of spirit that has endured.

A collection of solo piano music conjuring soundscapes of changing timbres and tonal hues conveying the beauty of Baltic culture. The Latvian Lucija Garuta (1902-1977) and the Estonian Ester Magi (1922-2021) are two of the most important pianist composers of their generation. Exploring their similarities and differences is an album of virtuosic pianism that encapsulates the essence of Baltic song, a deep connection to nature and the mysterious world of Baltic folklore.

October 29, 1923 was a date steeped in history. In the middle of a year of political and economic crises, the age of public radio in Germany was ushered in with the first broadcast of the "Berliner Funkstunde" (Berlin Radio Hour) from the attic of an office building on Potsdamer Platz. Radio offered entirely new possibilities for the production and reception of music. The two compositions on this CD not only benefited from these developments but also played an active role in shaping them.

Eduard Künneke's five-movement Concerto grosso "Tänzerische Suite" op. 26 for jazz band and large orchestra corresponded to modern dances: the Overture is a Foxtrot, the Andante a Blues, the Intermezzo a Tango, the valse mélancolique a Boston Waltz, and the Finale a Foxtrot again. The suite was celebrated as a milestone in contemporary radio music and soon became part of the regular concert program.

Hanns Eisler's cantata "Tempo der Zeit" (Tempo of the Times) op. 16 for soloists, narrator, choir, winds, and percussion was written in 1929. The libretto was written by the popular lyricist Robert Gilbert, under the pseudonym of David Weber. With its pure wind ensemble and percussion, "Tempo der Zeit" captures the typical Songspiel sound of the time. The fact that Eisler used the "modern" medium of radio, of all things, to get his fundamental criticism of blind enthusiasm for technology across to the people is an ironical aspect of the work’s composition and reception history. This CD is part of the special programme focus on the topic "The Wild Sound of the Twenties".