ROARATORIO
Minneapolis based label, founded in 2000. Released some great archival stuff (Sun Ra, Nelson Gastaldi, Pauline Oliveros, Rodd Keith, Crystal Syphon, Philip Corner), contemporary improv/free jazz by "A" Trio, Joe McPhee and Chris Corsano and others.
"Thollem McDonas: "This is the third trio album Nels and I have made together, each time with a different 3rd partner. The previous two were The Gowanus Session with William Parker and Radical Empathy with Michael Wimberly. Though each session has been unique in itself, ...
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ROAR42 | ROARATORIO
"A companion EP to the recent double LP retrospective This Song Was Borne, Flight Of The Light Air Force features three exclusive tracks by cult favorite outsider-folk duo Fraser & DeBolt. The majestic title track is an outtake from their second Columbia LP With ...
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ROAR44 | ROARATORIO
"In an everlasting process that continuously repositions and reevaluates infinity as a consciously unachievable but ultimately rewarding goal since the early 90's, David Maranha's music has been riding that arc with ferocity and aplomb. A unique vision that has been ...
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ROAR43 | ROARATORIO
"One might think, with a discography as extensive as the one Sun Ra boasts, that the scope of his work has been fully apprehended by this point, but The Intergalactic Thing demonstrates its seemingly bottomless depths. This is not a complete surprise: anyone who saw Ra ...
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ROAR40 | ROARATORIO
"Allan Fraser & Daisy DeBolt met in the summer of 1969. They had both been working individually on the coffeehouse circuit in their native Canada; over the next five years, as the duo of Fraser & DeBolt, they created a sublime body of work that still sounds remarkably ...
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ROAR39 | ROARATORIO
"The Cleveland Wrecking Company were formed in San Francisco in 1965. Their members came from jazz, flamenco and R&B backgrounds, but together their psychedelic brew verged on Blue Cheer heaviness. As perennial local favorites, they gigged at every stage in the area. ...
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ROAR41 | ROARATORIO
"In 1976, Joe McPhee recorded the landmark album Tenor, kicking off a solo period of finding and refining the distinctive voice that continues to inform his music to this day. Solos: The Lost Tapes (1980 - 1981 - 1984) is a collection of material from McPhee's personal ...
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ROAR38 | ROARATORIO
"For decades, Crystal Syphon were, at most, a footnote in the music history books: a name on posters from the psychedelic ballroom days, and a fond memory to those who'd seen the Merced, California band perform on the west coast circuit in the late 1960s. That changed ...
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ROAR37 | ROARATORIO
""Les Barricades Misterieuses", the harpsichord gem by French Baroque composer François Couperin, has been a long-running source of exploration for Fluxus musician Philip Corner, who for years has used it as a jumping-off point for piano improvisations. Through Two ...
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ROAR36 | ROARATORIO
"If the city of Beirut doesn't leap to mind as a hotbed of avant-garde musical activity, listen up: since 2005, the Al Maslakh label (translation: The Slaughterhouse) has been documenting far-thinking sounds from the small but vital Lebanese scene. The "A" Trio's first ...
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ROAR32 | ROARATORIO
"To call Rodd Keith the king of the song-poems (also known as the "send us your lyrics" quick buck-demo mill) is damning with faint praise: no one else in that shady backwater of the music industry possessed an array of talents as distinctively individual as his. As ...
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ROAR31 | ROARATORIO
"Not since the early days of MC5 at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, circa 1968, had there been such an organic melding of sheer metalesque maelstrom and free jazz. These archival recordings from the legendary punk club CBGB capture a moment in time when open-minded ...
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ROAR30 | ROARATORIO
"In June of 1977, Steve Lacy and Joe McPhee shared a double bill in Basel, Switzerland. Lacy invited McPhee to join him for a duet to close his set, for which McPhee elected to bring out his own soprano saxophone. The main part of Lacy's performance was issued on the ...
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ROAR28 | ROARATORIO
"A major figure in 20th century arts and music (& beyond), Philip Corner studied with Henry Cowell and Olivier Messiaen, and was one of the original Fluxus conspirators, among other highlights of his long and storied career. As part of the body of his "Metal ...
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ROAR27 | ROARATORIO
"When psycho-spatial composer Nelson Gastaldi passed away in 2009 at the age of 77, he left behind a unique musical legacy that is only now beginning to be unveiled. A self-described "musical nihilist with noble and mystic origins" (as well as an accomplished visual ...
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ROAR24 | ROARATORIO
"My Pipe Yellow Dream is the second Roaratorio anthology of the highlights of Rodd Keith's work. Compiling fifteen previously unreissued songs from 1966 through his death in 1974 - including a never-before-heard cover of "Choo Choo Train" - My Pipe Yellow Dream ...
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ROAR23 | ROARATORIO
"When one thinks of the musical centers of New Zealand, the city of Tauranga doesn't have as celebrated a history as Dunedin, Auckland or Christchurch. Which is apt, in a way, as the artist known to us only as Rotate The Completor makes music that sounds unconnected to ...
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ROAR20 | ROARATORIO
"Rag captures the best from a series of freely improvised meetings between saxophonist George Cartwright and percussionist Davu Seru, recorded at various Minneapolis venues over the course of 2009. Cartwright - longtime leader of Curlew, and owner of a musical c.v. ...
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ROAR19 | ROARATORIO
"Rodney Keith Eskelin, aka Rodd Keith, aka Rod Rogers, would've certainly found the recognition during his lifetime that his talent demanded, if he hadn't chosen to work in the lowest depths of the music industry: the "send us your lyrics" field, known today as the ...
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ROAR10 | ROARATORIO
"A revelatory debut album by a 64 year old pianist/composer may beg the question: where has Carei Thomas been all this time? Born in a culturally diverse neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Thomas cut his musical teeth in Chicago during a particularly fertile period for that ...
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ROAR04 | ROARATORIO
"Formed in Minneapolis in 2004, Knife World have converted many unwary bystanders into true believers through their frenetic gigs in underground venues and the occasional club. The band worships at the Riff Temple, swapping pomposity for a mischievous intelligence. Jon ...
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ROAR13 | ROARATORIO
"Paul Metzger continues to pile up the plaudits from critics and peers alike for his virtuosic string-slinging, gaining notice through his CD on Chairkickers and his split LP with Ben Chasny and Chris Corsano on Roaratorio. Metzger's modified banjo is tricked out with ...
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ROAR14 | ROARATORIO
