'Altera Vita' is the first studio album by World renowned multi-award winning artists Tony Kofi (tenor saxophone) and Alina Bzhezhinska (harp) as a duo. The album is saxophone and harp in perfect harmony with Tony and Alina also providing the bulk of the percussion to accompany their recordings. Tony Kofi is widely recognized as one of the leading Jazz saxophonists in the UK and his duties include regularly lending his skills to legendary group Cymande for their live performances. Alina has been heralded as the "New Sound of Europe'' and the duo’s innovative and refreshing approach to recording is apparent on this album. The namesake and inspiration for this album; ‘Altera Vita’ (2023) was named in Downbeat’s jazz albums of 2023, which is very rare for a single release!

This release in a series of live recordings of concerts from the Fabrik in Hamburg-Altona, one of those hidden treasures from the archive of the NDR, was intended to bring back the memory of changes and revolutions in the world of jazz of more than four decades ago. It has now turned into an obituary - at the end of September 2022 the tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders passed away at the age of 81. This recording of the Sanders Quartet from 6 June 1980 is so far the oldest from the Fabrik, predating the great jazz-epoch of the venue. An era, which even today Thomas Engel, the first program planner of the Fabrik, describes as a very special period for popular and not-so-popular culture in Hamburg and far beyond. Furthermore, this concert formed part of the then fifth edition of what was still called the New Jazz Festival, a summit of German, European and US-American musicians.

Sometimes written off as an also-ran to her more famous husband, Alice Coltrane's work of the late '60s and early '70s shows that she was a strong composer and performer in her own right, with a unique ability to impregnate her music with spirituality and gentleness without losing its edges or depth. Ptah, The El Daoud is a truly great album, and listeners who surrender themselves to it emerge on the other side of its 46 minutes transformed. From the purifying catharsis of the first moments of the title track to the last moments of "Mantra," with its disjointed piano dance and passionate ribbons of tenor cast out into the universe, the album resonates with beauty, clarity, and emotion. Coltrane's piano solo on "Turiya and Ramakrishna" is a lush, melancholy, soothing blues, punctuated only by hushed bells and the sandy whisper of Ben Riley's drums and later exchanged for an equally emotive solo by bassist Ron Carter.

With Pharoah Sanders’ blessing, we present the definitive, remastered version of PHAROAH, his seminal record from 1977, in an embossed 2 LP box set. Alongside the original record, we’re including two previously unreleased live performances of his masterpiece, “Harvest Time".

Electronic jazz pioneer, pianist, producer, remixer Mark de Clive-Lowe has an envious reputation as a cross genre creative artist who blends acoustic, electronic and world music exploring themes of belonging and identity. Equal parts jazz, house, hip hop and broken beat artist, Jazziz summed him up perfectly - "way before jazz hybridity became a worldwide phenomenon, de Clive-Lowe was busy designing its blueprint.”

The photo of Sanders in lotus position, generously collared psychedelic shirt poking out from under his white robes, says it all. Having abandoned the Ayler-influenced sound of Pharoah's First, released almost a decade previously, by Village Of The Pharoahs the saxophonist had jumped with both feet into the soaring and the spiritual. The album is a slightly mixed bag, with material from the main San Francisco sessions bulked out with tracks recorded in New Jersey and New York. It's also unusual in that Sanders plays tenor on just one track, the rest of the time contributing a combination of soprano, bells, percussion and vocals.

With Sam Shepherd’s Floating Points project moving further away from the dancefloor and former status as king of Plastic People with every release, it seemed like only a matter of time before he made a record with an orchestra and a free-jazz luminary. From that point of view, then, the music on Promises – a single, 45-minute semi-minimalist quasi-concerto for saxophone backed by various keyboard instruments and a string orchestra recorded in what appears to be a single, live, and rather spine-tingling take – is not a huge surprise. From the point of view of how much can be done with such sparse foundations, how to bring together fairly disparate musical worlds, and how captivating a recording can be, though, Promises is astonishing.