Out Of Your Head Vinyl, CD & Tape 26 Items

Christopher Dammann Sextet Liner Notes | Bill Meyer:

Christopher Dammann Sextet is a debut record, but it’s by no means a first effort. Bassist, composer, and improviser Christopher Dammann has been making records for about fifteen years, first as a member of 3.5.7 Ensemble and more recently as the leader of Restroy. Throughout that time, he’s also gigged persistently in Chicago, notably as a regular substitute for Brian Sandstrom in the long-lived free improv collective Extraordinary Popular Delusions, and from Charlottesville, VA (between 2010-2018). The choice to give a combo his name amounts to a declaration of arrival; Dammann’s music has evolved to a point where his bass playing, composing, and choice of musicians jointly express his faith in spontaneous collective creation.

That synthesis is evident from the record’s first minute. It begins with an unaccompanied bass solo which is not so much a demonstration of chops as an expression of possibility. A-linear but purposeful, it conveys motion, but contains brief rests and spaces that untether the music from strict time. It establishes a foundation that is supportive but malleable, and that flexibility is one essential element of Dammann’s personal idiom.

Then the other musicians join him, one by one. Edward Wilkerson Jr.’s Eb alto clarinet sounds brooding, yet exploratory, and Scott Clark’s understated drumming stokes the music’s energy like focused steam. Explains Dammann, “The sextet is interested in the possibility of non-linear time. I was hoping the compositions would allow for multiple pulses at once, making scenarios where we could go both backwards and forwards. Time travel is a theme of the record.”

As Wilkerson’s playing heats up, Mabel Kwan’s unobtrusively places piano notes like flagstones in his path, perfectly placed to both support his progress and enable him to pivot wherever his probing exploration needs to go. When Jon Irabagon and James Davis finally join nearly four minutes into the piece, their lines seem to grow out of Wilkerson’s. Each takes its own path, but they articulate a common air of regret. The selection of personnel is a compositional choice, and Dammann has chosen players who are patient but assertive, with personal voices that combine into self-balancing polyphony.

This complex compound of singular personalities did not emerge quickly. Dammann first assembled the group as a quintet in January 2023 working with Irabagon for the first time at Davis’ recommendation. After adding Wilkerson as a guest at a show that summer, Dammann spent a year condensing the material and reworking it for a sextet. They reconvened in July 2024 and played publicly and privately for a week before going into the studio, workshopping tunes that provide just enough information to spark their imaginations and then stay out of their way. “It was a goal of mine not to overwrite but to facilitate space for everyone. It's easy to write too much and choke what is special about an improviser. I made a personal promise to myself not to hold anything I composed in higher regard than what was spontaneously collectively composed the day of the session.” He has kept that promise; the tunes on Christopher Dammann Sextet are made to be finished, reimagined and finished anew each time that they’re performed.

Limited (500) 12" black vinyl LP of Tomas Fujiwara - Pith (ooyh 022), featuring artwork + photography + design by TJ Huff, and pressed at Gotta Groove Records. The LP also includes an 11 x 11" full color insert with additional artwork and photography.

Limited (500) 12" vinyl of Mali Obomsawin (ooyh 017) on black vinyl, featuring layout/design by TJ Huff, photography by Abby Lank and Jared Lank, and liner notes by Mali Obomsawin.

The Hemphill Stringtet:

Curtis Stewart - violin Sam Bardfeld - violin Stephanie Griffin - viola Tomeka Reid - cello

All music by Julius Hemphill (Subito Music Corporation). Recorded, edited, and mixed by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio. Mastered by Paul Zinman, Soundbyte Productions. Cover photography by Nina Contini Melis. Artwork + design by TJ Huff (huffart.com).

The Hemphill Stringtet would like to thank the Aaron Copland Fund and Continuum Culture for their generous financial support.

We would also like to extend our deepest gratitude to the following people without whom this recording would not have been possible: Adam Hopkins, Ursula Oppens, Ryan Streber, Paul Zinman, Kevin Whitehead, TJ Huff, Nina Contini Melis, Peter Margasak, Marty Ehrlich, Andrew Drury, Matt Merewitz, and Jan Castro.

Limited (500) 12" vinyl of Mali Obomsawin (ooyh 017) on black vinyl, featuring layout/design by TJ Huff, photography by Abby Lank and Jared Lank, and liner notes by Mali Obomsawin.

Limited 12" (400 printed) of George - Letters to George (ooyh 018) on black vinyl (180g), featuring original artwork by TJ Huff

Limited 12" (200 printed) of Eric Wubbels / Charmaine Lee / Weston Olencki - Field of Action / contraposition (ooyh 013) on black vinyl (180g), featuring original artwork by TJ Huff

Atlantic Extraction (ooyh 004), Nick Dunston's debut album, as well as the name of this very active quintet, demonstrates a compositional maturity well beyond his years. Touching upon Free Jazz, No Wave, 20th Century Western Classical music, and Appalachian Folk, some of the pieces were written four years ago, and others were written in the studio just minutes before being recorded. The music represents the full spectrum of diversity versus cohesion, urgency versus patience. Atlantic Extraction is not a recording project (no isolation booths, no punch-ins, and typically only one or two takes per track). It is an internal negotiation of the bandleader's relationship to the idea of permanence, and serves as a reminder that, as Noah Becker writes in the liner notes, "music is expressed in process, not product...". Within this unique ensemble comprised of bass, flute, violin, guitar, and drums, the musicians are constantly balancing the integrity of the compositions with their individual improvisational approaches. Atlantic Extraction embodies craftsmanship, virtuosity, trust, and vulnerability.

slight seam split.

Grounded was initially recorded as the first track of what was to become Crickets II by my NYC-based ensemble Crickets, and the follow up to the album of the same name from 2018. The track was recorded remotely from locations literally across the world in Winter of 2020/2021, which everyone knows was a time of minimal in-person recording opportunity. As the band further spread out over the next year, this consequently was the only documentation of the new material I had written for the group featuring Anna Webber, Josh Sinton, Ed Rosenberg, Jonathan Goldberger, and Devin Gray. Perhaps a reunion is a possibility down the line, but for now I'm thrilled to present this final Crickets track on the 5th anniversary of the original album's release.

Included here in digital format is Crickets (ooyh 001) from 2018 for the first time in HD at 88.2 kHz/24-bit, and the new track Grounded which will release on October 19, 2023. TJ Huff gave the album art a sweet redesign for the 5th anniversary LP release, in line with his more recent Ooyh artwork. TJ also did the awesome single cover for Grounded in the 90s skateboard art style we initially conceived as the look for Ooyh Records. All of the tracks featured on this page are included as part of the 5th anniversary LP release.

This is a very special and super limited edition of 180g Mali Obomsawin - Sweet Tooth LPs. We ordered 100 and the plant came up one short, so there are 99 total out in the world. This 180g edition of the album features a pop art redesign of the jacket by TJ Huff, and includes the original liner note insert. Layout/design by TJ Huff (huffart.com), photography by Abby Lank and Jared Lank, and liner notes by Mali Obomsawin on a 2-sided 11 x 11 insert.. These sound AMAZING on 180g black vinyl

Clamor rethinks the notion of 'women's work' as a space for both collaboration and singular voice. Just as our ensemble is limited and enabled by the written score, so might be individual enunciations of how gender norms limit agency. Clamor utilizes a collective, improvisational vision that prioritizes an intentionally fluid style by employing indeterminacy, navigated by the performers via time-based scores. These principles are balanced with metered notation to shape the overall form of the pieces, reflecting circumventing obstructions to one's freedoms. The alternating music notation styles mirror these restraints and solutions. Through the open spaces, the musicians re-create the compositions together each time they perform, establishing a collaborative relationship between the individual musician and larger group performance.

Clamor's movements are titled after innovations made by women throughout history to circumvent obstructions to their freedoms. Neolttwigi utilizes rhythms representing the 17th-century Korean standing seesaw invented by women who could not freely go outdoors to provide a glimpse of the scenery beyond their property walls. Nu Shu honors the secret language created and used exclusively by Chinese women forbidden to go to school like their brothers. Nu Shu features the improvising soloist in dialogue with the ensemble.

Bloom is named after bloomers, which Amelia Bloom designed during the 1850s Victorian dress reform.

Nu Shu features bassoon soloist, Katherine Young, attending to her talent for improvising within a collaborative context. Young is a composer and sound artist who has developed a unique language for bassoon. The movements to feature her have built-in moments of gently structured spontaneity that attend to her original voice.