Martin

Here is the link to the Ictus Records website: http://www.ictusrecords.com/ You see, there is MUCH more to explore than just the 30th anniversary edition. CD boxes all over...

Considering the replies, and I support most of the above suggestions, you should! P.S. I also love a lesser known but excellent record Paul Bley Trio, on Radio Canada International label, recorded in Montral 1968, with Mario Pavone on bass and Barry Altschul on drums That one is hopelessly oop, I guess?

More than once I was told that CD-Rs with a black downside surface are better than others - more durable, less susceptible to clicks and glitches, more readily accepted by different players and so on. Anyone else out there besides myself who uses them?

It is their fourth album.

I was at the release party 4-5 months ago (with shy arts student girls who designed the covers for the CDs in the set in attendance). I like Tarasov, one of my favorite drummers, but I am not sure I really need 11 of his solo drum discs. Will I get this set? Surely I will. Eventually. (If the price is no more than USD90.) Did I mention that the set was sponsoired by The Ford Foundation? I find it quite amusing (and admirable). I'm presuming this is mostly previously released material. Not sure if I need 11 CDs of solo percussion either, but I'll buy it anyway, especially if is as well done as past major undertakings by Leo (ie. Document, Conspiracy, Divine Madness). Well, I don't have any of the previous large Leo boxes, but this one is very handsome. IIrc, all but one discs are previously released (and still available individually). Three of the CDs and the DVD have not been released before. I do not think the eight CDs previously available on Sonore are easy to find now - officially they have been OOP for years. This is NOT 11 CDs of solo drums/solo percussion! Some of the discs even are not solo Tarasov. As to the design: This is NOT a Leo release, but a Long Arms release, although it seemingly is a co-production of the two labels with Leo being clearly in the second place. At least the version I own has got nothing to do with the usual (large) Leo CD box design... maybe Leo is going to release a different version? (which I do not expect them to do, but what do I know).

It probably will, Gary! I got my copy just yesterday!

I did, I did! The order was received in two days - all as ordered. I went through the discs only once - I will post my thoughts after I spend more time with them. So far, let me note that there is some KILLER stuff there. ← I'm completely amazed. I have never had any positive experience with ordering from FMR. Must be ME... Д.Д. and everyone else, have a look at the updated new releases page of FMR - tons of brand new and forthcoming stuff...

If I remember correctly, a few weeks or months ago some funny rats posted they were going to place orders at FMR records. Did you actually do? And did you get what you ordered?

I recommend to anyone interested in this kind of music to grab a copy of the "Assumed Possibilities" (music on the borderline of free improv and eai). A genuine collectors' item - and this may be the only chance to get hold of a copy at all (the CDR has been OOP for years now!).

Nuovi Sentimenti is available on CD as part of the Gaslini anthology on Soul Note.

Thanks a lot for your kind offer, Д.Д. When/if I am going to add Pentagramma titles to my collection, I will get back to you... For the time being, I am a bit reluctant as to buying Pentagramma CDRs. I already own two of them: the Letov/Smith CDR, which has scratching noises from beginning to end, and the Letov/Ponomareva CDR. My original copy of that one stopped in the midst of the last track, and Improjazz (where I purchased the item) did not have a replacement copy in stock. I then wrote to Sergey Letov who sent me an OK copy for free (the one and only time I got a CD directly from Moscow!).

Alexandrov made Munich his home some years back, does anybody know if he is still living there? Don't know if he has any recordings out at all past 2000... Д.Д., I guess you purchased your Pentagramma CDRs from Sergey Letov directly? Apart from Improjazz (which have/had a limited stock of some Pentagramma titles) I do not know of any European distributor for the label...

AFAIK, the TriO CD with Sainkho is from 1998. There are more recordings by TriO on Sergey Letov's own CDR label Pentagramma.

I'm not too excited about this one. Quite one-dimensional.

The Carl/Johansson duo has been a well established group in the European free improv scene for many years. Their 1997 concert series in Sweden yielded two more CDs (CDRs, that is), out on Johansson's own label: "Stockholm 97" and "At Galleri Anders Tornberg". Both are somewhat better than I expected, and sound quality is quite ok.

Tony, this is the story so far: I sent Anatoly an e-mail listing the CDs I wanted to order. Anatoly replied within less than a day specifying the exact amount he asked me to pay for the CDs and for postage/packaging. He lowered CD prices a bit since I placed a large order and since I told him about the high bank charges for a money transfer from Germany to a non EU country. I agreed to his terms and he supplied all relevant data for the transfer (again, within less than a day). About four days after I transferred the money, Anatoly sent another e-mail, saying that he phoned his bank and got confirmation that his bank account will be credited with the amount I transferred. A few days later (last Tuesday) he sent off the CDs (by air mail) which he guesses should arrive here next week. We'll see... I am sure Anatoly is well aware of how complicated the procedure of ordering CDs from him is. Unfortunately, Bulgaria is not a PayPal country (yet). Even Portugal ain't - I ordered some Creative Sources CDs a few weeks ago and had to pay by bank transfer, too (but without the horrendous bank charges and without having to take fright at customs' unrelenting hands).

My Potlatch order is only two CDs (the new Sowari trio and the Agnel/Marchetti/Noetinger) - there are less than six Potlatch CDs missing in my collection... And finally, I finalized my (first) order from Anatoly Vapirov in Bulgaria. Eight CDs/CDRs are en route from the Black Sea to a little town in Upper Franconia...

Surprising, I didn't know that. The LP version of the Alex Cline album is available though. Are there other titles which very issued on CD and have gone OOP, apart from those two? Gallopping through the current ECM catalogue, I found those (all of them still available in LP format): ECM 1307 (First House) XtraWATT/5 (Karen Mantler) XtraWATT/6 (Steve Swallow) There may be others which have been discontinued in their CD AND LP incarnations, but I would have to examine my collection closely to find those... There are some titles which were re-released on CD in Japan, but meanwhile have gone OOP, too (ECM 1039: Dave Liebman; probably ECM 1026: Stanley Cowell). AFAIK, the original plans were to re-release three Steve Kuhn originals (Trance, Ecstasy, Playground) as a 3-CD-Set. The first two of those, however, are available in Japanese CD editions.

Not true. They discontinued the CD editions of ECM 1372 (Alex Cline) and ECM 1436 (Christy Doran a.o.).

Re: Rossbin I was quite surprised to see that those discs were sent from Spain (no sender's address on the envelope, but Spanish stamps).

Д.Д., I had to postpone my AVA order, as I gravely overstretched my budget in the past few months. As you can guess, the arrival of Leo's April press release did not help to readjust my bank account. Nor did the acquisition of a dvd player. Sooner or later I WILL get back to Anatoly Vapirov, but it may take me a couple of weeks/months. I am thinking about placing another (small!) Rossbin order. Two of those "very few copies" discs look quite appealing to me...

I got the email two days after paying, so don't worry yet! Yes, I'm not worried as it's a mailing confirmation mail! That may take a few days - I would be worried only if it was an order confirmation mail, because that should come faster than after two days! I also ordered five CDs from Rossbin and did not get a confirmation from them at all. CDs, however, arrived after less than one week.

Д.Д., it would be great if you let me know if/how Anatoly Vapirov will replace the defective AVA CDR you got... I am presently in the process of working out a deal with Anatoly in order to buy some of his self-released stuff. His CD prices are ok for me, but then there are bank charges (€16.50) and customs duties/VAT (about €25.00 when/if ordering seven discs)...

...and it also has found its way into the catalogue of a German mail order store (which means that I placed an order there).

Д.Д., yes, I have thought about possibilities to lower shipping costs for a future AVA order, but Anatoly himself points out that he works with "certified shipping companies" in order to ensure proper delivery of his CDs. He surely has his points. I have not had much experience with ordering from Eastern European countries, and in my personal 25 years+ history of collecting records there were ony two cases of packages having got lost in the mail - some years ago from England (Incus) and in late 2004 from Italy (Giancarlo Schiaffini). Karen and Giancarlo readily resent the parcels, and finally everything worked out fine. Giancarlo proved to be a particularly nice guy: he shrugged off the affair with a good dose of (Roman?) humor. As to the value on the customs slip: Don't know if insurance is an issue for Anatoly's certified shipping company, but I absolutely can imagine it is... Not an easy task to pick some recs out of Paul's vast Duns catalogue. To get an overview of Duns CDRs up to no.022, I recommend you to read Steve Lake's essay here. If you like the bagpipes on Hit And Run, I'd go for Bagpipes II, the second (of three) bagpipes solo recordings and the one I like best. Track titles are just as great as the music! The trio with Paul Rogers and Philip Gibbs has quite a lot of CDRs out (partly augmented by a fourth musician), but for me Live At The Quaker Centre and The State Of Moksha Live are among the strongest. If you prefer stuff with drums, you might try Kunikazu (with Keith Tippett), Zooplongoma or Garganchelopes. Those discs feature Peter Fairclough, Tony Marsh and Tony Bianco, respectively, on the drum chair.