Yur-a-peein'

Besides the online music stores that tempt me with UK imports, out of the links to the right, I spend most of my time at the European Free Improvisation site. What it lacks in design and layout (recalling those bad cut-and-paste HTML codes from Geocities), it more than makes up for in content. The site supplies every free-improviser and avant-garde jazz player of note with an extensive discography and biography. If this information were not enough, Peter Stubley - the site's maintainer since 1996 - also provides articles and interviews (translated into English where need be), MP3s and excerpts, and links to notable websites and an enormous listing of European, Asian, and American record labels with descriptions. While the All Music Guide certainly is a recommended resource, the amount of material at the European Free Improvisation site is invaluable when it comes to things across the Atlantic.

Anyway, I noticed a week ago, Stubley (who constantly updates the site) put up his Best of Half the Year list for 2005. I should mention only one of those releases is not an import to the US: The Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet's Be Music, Night on Okka Disk, which I happen to own. Looking at his list, I'm most intrigued by the Roger Smith (guitar) & Louis Moholo-Moholo (percussion) album, The Butterfly and the Bee on Emanem Records. I've heard clips of Smith's work and could only imagine what he and Moholo-Moholo cooked up.

Speaking of, Stubley also posted an article on Moholo-Moholo translated from the French magazine Improjazz.