LANQUIDITY RECORDS is a completely independent record label. We are long time record collectors and we believe in the power of vinyl to deliver true quality sound like no other medium.

Albums:

STILL MOVING – STILL MOVING EP LQ010
Release date 15th November 2019 - BUY

Still Moving is comprised of 3 musicians: Nat Phillips on saxophone, Pike Ogilvy on drums, and Sam Bates on synthesisers and drum machines. Drawing from a wide pool of influence – touching on Jazz, folk rhythm traditions, club-oriented electronics, and progressive experimentalism – they generate an organic performance rooted in an intimate musical understanding between performers.

SM is an invitation to a fluid journey through musical space, just as capable of provoking emotion and introspection as inspiring dance and movement. Working from the principle that no two shows be the same, they access a sound that is at once poetic yet constantly developing: a sound that is Still Moving.

The group’s recorded material reflects the live, improvisatory nature of the project, mixing raw and dynamic performance with an experimental approach to studio production. Whether in the flesh or on record, they capture a unique synthesis of musical styles that is sure to move you in body and in spirit.

Band members:

Nat Phillips (saxophone)
Pike Ogilvy (drums)
Sam Bates (synthesisers and drum machines)

mazolewski

Track list

1. Sharp Arts
2. Collide / Construct
3. Gift For Mathilda
4. Unstable Memory

Links

SUN RA ARKESTRA – LIVE IN KALISZ 1986 2LP LQ009
Release Date 26th October 2019 - BUY

It was one of the most peculiar landings of the Sun Ra Arkestra.

Time: 7 December 1986, Polish People’s Republic, still separated from the West by the Iron Curtain. It's a grey and poor twilight of a real socialism era. In three years the Eastern Bloc would collapse, but what still occupies the minds of Poles now is mostly the martial law imposed by the Pro-Moscow regime in 1981, when the country wanted to free itself from the influence of the Soviet Union.

Place: Kalisz, one of the oldest Polish cities dating back to the 10th century, historically connected with the first kings of Poland, grew into a multinational centre with time as not only the Czech Brethren escaping the Habsburg monarchy found refuge here, but also prominent rabbis known across Europe used to operate and expound in the local Jewish community. In the 20th century Kalisz became a provincial city and its presence in the cultural life of Poland was most significantly marked with the International Jazz Piano Festival. It was during the 13th edition of the festival that Sun Ra Arkestra performed.

mazolewski

Track list

1. Infinity Drum Intro / Discipline 27-II
2. Children of the Sun
3. Improvised I
4. Yeah Man!
5. Improvised II
6. Unititled Blues
7. I’ll Never Be the Same
8. Prelude to a Kiss
9. Mack the Knife
10. Outro (Drum Solo)

Links

What turned out to be most memorable for the concert-goers was the closing procession of musicians who left the stage to walk around the audience, circle the venue, and return. Researchers of the Sun Ra mysticism recognized such gestures as rituals of passage corresponding to the cosmic cycles of death and resurrection. From a European perspective, Sun Ra's work turns out to be a dream come true for Wagner and Stockhausen. His music brought the myth to life. The myth connecting the past with the future – above the unfavourable present – which created a sphere of freedom. However, Ra used to say that it was not freedom that was at stake here, but precision and discipline.

Ra the Myth Maker was an intransigent radical. He perceived the blackness of his race as corresponding to the blackness of space, and thus declared that the Black Community was destined to migrate into space. He would proclaim the Black Myth, which was a manifesto of alienation from the dominant culture of the West, breaking with its order of time, space and values. And so, Ra became the most prominent pioneer of Afro-Futurism, a movement that rewrites history in order to re-incorporate the marginalized race into it.

He was born as Herman Blount in 1914 in Birmingham, Alabama in the South of the United States where racial segregation was still drastic. When he would play in hotels, though already a renowned musician, he had to use the doors and elevators meant for staff. In 1942, after he refused military service, he spent five weeks in prison, and then six months performing public works, from where he was sent away because of a hernia. In 1952, at the age of 38, he got a passport with a new name taken from the Egyptian sun god: Le Sony’r Ra.

He proclaimed that he was not a human, but a spiritual being, and that he had come to Earth from Saturn. He claimed that he had experienced “transmolecularization” as a result of which he was transferred to space, where he learnt the truth about his nature and the world in which he lived. “This planet is like a train station.” He would spread the good word: we are immortal citizens of the infinite universe. And the good word would be spread by an experimental jazz big band Sun Ra

Arkestra organized like a religious association. When asked about his inhuman condition, he used to answer without emotion, in a sort of trickster way, that even though he might be nobody here, he is Ra in another existential dimension.

At the same time, the Arkestra has become a social microorganism, a cosmic ark and a scientific laboratory. It’s been around under various names since 1951 and has been operating continuously, despite the death of Ra in 1993, to this day. It’s touched upon an unlimited range of styles, from tribal rhythms and hymnic chants, through archaic forms of jazz and rhythm & blues, swing, exotica and hard bop, to free improvisation, protopsychodelia and electronic noise. Some pastiche, yet essential quotations from popular and classical music, African polyrhythms, eastern modalities and atonality of the 20th-century western avant-garde found a common denominator here.

From the artistic perspective, the Black Myth brought a release of possibilities beyond all divisions. But Ra had yet another viewpoint at the myth. “I'm interested in happiness for people, which is just a myth, because they're not happy. I would say that the synonym for myth is happiness,” he said. I recall these words looking at an old coverage that appeared after the Arkestra concert in Kalisz: “The entire musical and scene setting, however, seems of little importance in the face of the mysterious energy that emanates from Sun Ra. When he looks from the stage at his Arkestra or the people gathered in the theatre, he is the personification of Goodness and Love.”

Let these words be proof that Afro-Futurism is not Sun Ra’s only domain. I like to think that by giving a concert in Kalisz, on the outskirts of the communist Eastern Bloc, Sun Ra Arkestra gave a black impulse for a change that contributed to the system’s collapse.

Rafał Księżyk
Wrote about Sun Ra in his book "Wywracanie kultury. O dandysach, hipsterach i mutantach ("Overturning culture. On dandies, hipsters and mutants."), Czarne Publishing House, Warsaw 2018.

Band members:

Danny Ray Thompson (bassoon, sax)
Laurdine Kenneth "Pat" Patrick (baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, and Fender bass)
Marshall Belford Allen (alto sax)
Tyler Mitchell ( Bass )
Ronald Wilson ( Tenor Sax )
John Gilmore ( Tenor Sax, Clarinet )
James Jacson ( Bassoon, Ancient Egyptian Infinity Drums )
Leroy Taylor ( Alto Sax, Alto & Bass Clarinet )
Tyrone Hill ( Trombone )
Earl "Buster" Smith ( Drums )
Carl LeBlanc ( Guitar )
Sun Ra ( Piano, Synthesizer )

NOON – ALGORYTM LP LQ 008
Release Date – 04 May 2018 - BUY

ALGORYTM is the resolution of hundreds of sketches. The album is a complex diary, charting the evolution of short pieces of music first composed in 2010. The melodies and ideas on which the compositions are based are like traces which, as NOON (Mikolaj Bugajak) explains, were haunting him for years. He compares them to an equation which could only be solved by intuition. ALGORYTM can be experienced as an individual album or, for those familiar with NOON’s earlier releases, interpreted as the final expression of a trilogy formed by the Certain Sequences EP (2008) and Strange Sounds and Inconceivable Deeds (2010). NOON has devoted many years to creating his distinct style, a process that has been something of a practical meditation and most importantly, the acceptance of imperfection.

ALGORYTM is a thirty-minute musical narrative formed of four multi-layered compositions. The album was fully created using analogue techniques and instruments, spanning the use of ribbon microphones to recording on magnetic tape. All electronically generated sounds are ‘alive’ and in constant change. The many shades of the album are reflected on multiple planes – though we might not hear them, we can always feel them.

The cinematic arrangement has been elevated with a violin part performed by Karolina Rec (Project Resina - 130701 / Fatcat) and piano sequences by Stefan Wesołowski (Ici D'ailleurs / Important Records / Mute Song Ltd). Both accomplished composers in their own rights, their creativity and individual styles of performance further enrich the NOON compositions with a perceptible character and depth.

Raw bass energy can be heard in ‘Grounded’ and has been delivered by Piotr Poloz from Polish rock ’n’ roll band Psychocukier. The rhythmic axis is provided by Bartosz Mikolaj Nazaruk, a vastly talented folk and jazz musician. The electric guitar solo from the first composition, ‘Rian’, was created by Karol Czajkowski (Unzipped Fly Records) who is specialised in the ethno-folk scene. A special guest on this record is Adam Strug, a unique melodist who is at the forefront of efforts to revitalise traditional Polish music that has been orally handed down across generations. Adam composed and performed the lyrics for this album’s final composition ‘Droga’.

Band members:

Music: Mikołaj Bugajak (NOON)
Lyrics (04): Adam Strug
Bass: Piotr Połoz (03)
Cello: Karolina Rec (01,03)
Drums: Bartosz Mikołaj Nazaruk (01,02,03,04)
Electric guitar: Karol Czajkowski (01)
Piano: Stefan Wesołowski (01,02,03,04)
Sampler, synths: Mikołaj Bugajak (01,02,03,04)
Vocal: Adam Strug (04)

mazolewski

Track list

1. Rian 8:05
2. Phantom Power 4:42
3. Grounded 7:50
4. Droga 7:52

Links

WOJTEK MAZOLEWSKI QUINTET London/Theme De Yoyo 12” LQ 007
Release date 27th March 2017 - BUY

Wojtek Mazolewski, born in Gdansk (Poland) in 1976, is a bassist, composer and the leading figure of the 21st century Polish Jazz movement. He heads the Wojtek Mazolowski Quintet and Pink Freud, also featuring in Me And That Man and Jazzombie. His ability to present jazz to younger listeners in the most unconventional of manners fuses seamlessly with a clear nod to the traditions established by the ‘golden era’ of Polish jazz.

Mazolewski has played and recorded together with Pete Wareham, Dennis Gonzales, Tim Berne, John Zorn, Pete Kowald, Tomasz Stanko, Zbigniew Namyslowski, Tymon Tymanski, Mikołaj Trzaska and others.

The record was released with the help from the Polish Culture Institute and Miasto Gdansk.

Band members:

Wojtek Mazolewski – double bass
Joanna Duda – piano
Marek Pospieszalski – saxophone
Oskar Torok – trumpet
Qba Janicki - drums

mazolewski

Track list

A1 - LONDON 5:37
Composed by Wojtek Mazolewski

B1 - THEME DE YOYO 7:11
Composed by Noreen Beasley, Lester Bowie, Malachi Favors, Roscoe Mitchell

Links

If Music Presents You Need This: Eastern European Sounds (1970-1986)
Release date 16th April 2016

We are very excited and proud to announce a new collaborative project between If Music/ Lanquidity/ Ninja Tune. Adrian Magrys was invited by Jean-Claude Thompson to take part in a brand new compilation “If Music presents You Need This: Eastern European Sounds (1970-1986)”.

Mastered by Barry Grint at Alchemy and cut on heavyweight 180g vinyl. Artwork by Guglielmo Willy Tavernaro (1909-1989). Sleeve design by Ali Augur.

The record will feature six tracks carefully selected by Adrian and Jean-Claude.

If music

Track list

A1. Wojciech Karolak – Discopus Nr 1 Pt. 1 & 2 (If Music Extended Edit)
A2. Alojz Bouda – Radnom (Naslepo)
A3. Polski Jazz Ensemble – Song for Ewa

B1. “Prince Igor” Yahilevich – Double Sun
B2. Andrzej Korzynski – L’Arme Du Milicien – Ptakarz
B3. Binder Quintet feat John Tchicai – Sirato (Dirge)

Links

BOGOWIE- Chi Chi 1LP LQ 006
Release date 20th March 2014

BOGOWIE (THE GODS) is a 2011 born project, blending free improvised music with sound-art practices of producing, exploring and understanding tones. The spectrum of sounds, consisting of traditional and modified musical instruments, is being complemented with every approachable items that can be grabbed and used to play music at a given moment.

BOGOWIE perceive the music as open-ended universe of sounds, with no divisions between classes or genres. The music constitutes their own language of communication, constantly evolving through the process of improvising, bearing mutual inspiration and incentives to work upon the sound material.

The personnel consists of experienced musicians, having been part of polish groups like Hey, L.Stadt, Pogodno, Przasniczki, having cooperated with artists such as Kasia Nosowska, Tymon Tymanski or Mariusz Wilczynski.

The Chi Chi album is a collection of 15 pieces carefully selected out of 4 hours of material, recorded 100% live in the studio. The listener receives the access to the world in which he becomes earwitness of music creation and emergence.

Also, he may always read and interpret the music as he pleases, according to his personal sensitivity, feelings, or cultural codes.

Track list:

A1. 38 – Monday, Near Midnight
A2. 16 - Monday, 5 Minutes To ¾ Of The Day
A3. 7 - Monday, After The Dinner
A4. 23 – Monday, 4/5h To Eight P.M.
A5. 9 – Monday, 2 Minutes Ago A Radio Speaker Announced: It’s Three P.M.
A6. 32 - Monday, 19th Minute Of TVP1 Program “Holy’s Father Ski”
A7. 24 – Monday, Clock’s Numbers Show The Year Of Ciechocinek City Rights Conferring
A8. 19 – Monday, Minute Hand Has Made Quarter Hundred Of Circles Since Six P.M.

B1. 3 – Monday, Dinnertime Since Two Minutes
B2. 36 – Monday’s Going To Bed, When Father Says: “Go To Bed Boy!”
B3. 10 – Monday, Nine Hundred And Eight Minutes Of This Beautiful Day
B4. 11 – Monday, Both Hands On 15 In A Minute
B5. 35 – Monday, It’s 54 Minutes To Something More
B6. 6 – Monday, Minutes And An Hour Of Track 11 Switched Places
B7. 22 – Monday, Eighteen To Six P.M.

If music

Band members:

Gwadera Piotr – drums, others
Lewy Suavas – chordophones, winds, others
Mijal Michal – low-sound chordophones, others
Zabrocki Marcin – analog keys, woodwinds, others

Jacek Mazurkiewicz – contrabass @ 38/7/9/32/19/3/36/35/22 , piezo fork synth @ 6
Gosia Herba – vox@19

Links

BAABA- Things I'm not 7″ LQ 005
Release date 1st May 2011

7” single Things I’m not by BAABA, including remixes by MAX TUNDRA and GREG SAUNIER.

Max Tundra, is an English multi-instrumental musician, singer and music producer. His work is predominantly electronic music but incorporates non-electronic styles and instruments. Other than his full length albums, he has also done remix work for bands of varying genres including Franz Ferdinand, Architecture in Helsinki, Kid606 and the Pet Shop Boys.

Greg Saunier is a songwriter, drummer and founding member of San Francisco band Deerhoof -one of the most important and unconventional bands on the independent music scene.

If music

Track List

A1. THINGS I’M NOT
MAX TUNDRA RMX

B1. THINGS I’M NOT
GREG SAUNIER (DEERHOOF) RMX

Links

BAABA- Disco Externo 1LP LQ 004
Release date 1st May 2011

BAABA was founded by Bartosz Weber in 2000. Already since its first form (2001), the band has had enthusiastic welcome and won a large fan base around Poland and in Europe. BAABA has given concerts all over the continent. They are famous for their notorious and crazy appearances crossing the border of simple musical event and performance art.

After the first record filled with electronica, the project started to evolve from a studio concept into a live band. After six years and four studio albums it has been described as the Polish underground supergroup joined by the famous jazz and underground musicians and producers known for collaborations including most famous names from the world of pop and avant garde.

Band members:

Bartek Weber – guitar, sampler
Tomek Duda – saxophones, flute, sampler
Piotr Zabrodzki – bass
Maciek Moruś – drums
If music

Track list

A1. Missie
A2. Obb
A3. Dance
A4. Dry Men
A5. Diamonds, Bitch!
A6. Thingsimnot

B1. Elo 28
B2. Over The Thingsimnot
B3. Pronunciation
B4. Git 2
B5. Washer
B6. Disco Externo Outro

Links

MITCH AND MITCH with their INCREDIBLE COMBO - XXII Century Sound Pioneers 1.5LP LQ 003
Release date 5th February 2011

1.5 LP (12″+7″)- 500 hand ­num­bered copies -LQ 003. By publishing their new album, this time in the already quite popular 9-person combo featuring the guest performances by Cannibal Mitch, Andrew Mitchbauer, Mitchella the Kidd and Half-Ape-Half-Mitch, the Mitchiz – as they tenderly call themselves whenever treating each others’ colds or consoling each other after yet another trip to Germany – are walking proudly right into the XXII century. Recorded in an ultra professional studio, XXII Century Sound Pioneers (available on vinyl, thanks to the latest achievements in sound technology) is their entry pass to the uncharted territory of musical exploration. If you think you know the sound of an instrument called Vibr-O-Matic™ or what can be done with a virtuoso brass section, then you’ve either been to a Mitch & Mitch show already or you simply don’t know what you’re talking about. If you think you know the feeling of extreme relaxation, then you are yet to discover how tense you really were. The choice is yours and is quite simple: either you join the rest of humanity in waiting more than 90 years, all the while pretending everything is fine, or you allow Mitch & Mitch to take you today on this journey into the XXII century.

“This is a serious matter in the age of the death of the avant–garde, when the once brave rape committed on cultural conventions has become mere masturbation.”

If music

Track list

1A. A Little Scratch
2A. Dinomatendo
3A. Two Fingers Up And Walk
4A. Older Than You
1Aa. Il colori degli angeli
1B. 1-2-3-4-5, Combo!
2B. Volcano
3B. Greek Wedding
1Bb.Japanese farewell song

Links

CONTEMPORARY NOISE QUINTET Pig inside the gentleman 2LP LQ 002
Release date 15th February 2010

C.N.Q was established by Kapsa brothers, who earlier formed Something Like Elvis the legendary emo-hardcore band. CNQ’s music can be described as energetic jazz with the elements of film music. However, the variety of sounds does not allow pigeonholing their music style unambiguously. The debut record “Pig Inside The Gentleman” was released only on cd in autumn 2006. It collected favourable reviews and became one of the records of the year in the plebiscite of III Program of Polish Radio.

“SOMETHING LIKE JAZZ Contemporary Noise Quintet – jazz music without jazz, film music without movie but something splendid instead! Despite the band’s name suggesting noisy music for the chosen ones, CNQ appears to be a revelation for everyone. Beautiful, hard, romantic piano tunes in the dialogue with brass section. Simple and extraordinary emotional compositions leading to the climax which makes the flesh creeps while listening. Hair bristle on the heads of those who remember the musical past of CNQ’s members…” - Bartek Chacinski

Band members:

Bartek Kapsa - drums and percussion
Kuba Kapsa - piano, melodica, samples, voice
Tomek Glazik – saxophones
Wojtek Jahna – trumpet
Kamil Pater - guitar
Patryk Weclawek - bass

If music

Track list

1A. Million Faces
2A. Army Of The Sun
1B. Walking Sin
2B. Goodbye Monster
3B. Coin Perfectly Spinning
1C. Evil Melody
2C. Invisible Train
3C. Even Cats Dream About Flying
1D. P.I.G.
2D. Sophie
3D. Chinese Customer*
* bonus track comes from album “Theatre Play Music”

Links

Soundcloud / Youtube

SPEAKERS CORNER QUARTET Further Back Than The Beginning 12″ EP LQ 001
Release date 11th July 2009

PAST

Speakers Corner Quartet started as the house band at the infamous hip-hop/spoken-word open-mic night Speakers’ Corner in Brixton, London. In the beginning the prerequisite of the quartet was to deliver beats to emcees/lyricists at the all-night open-mic sessions. Imperceptibly the quartet started writing their autochthonous compositions. It was instantaneously envisaged that the quartet had an extended aptitude that transcended backing lyricists.

The anomalous line-up (cello, flute, contrabass and drums) required an aberrant approach to composition – using single lines en masse to create chord structures rather than utilizing a committed harmony instrument. Influences include Zakir Hussain, Olivier Messiaen, Sun Ra, MF Doom to name but a few; the unique sound of the Speakers Corner Quartet is almost impossible to pigeon-hole.

An amalgam of Asian-classical-jazz-hip-hop, this is true mulatto music. For this reason, the Speakers Corner Quartet are part of a new movement of musicians who call their music 12tone.

PRESENT

“Further Back Than The Beginning” is the incipient E.P. from the Speakers Corner Quartet. This E.P. is the anterior project for the quartet, a precursor to the album for prospective release later in the year. The product was recorded and mixed by Ahmad Dayes and Jesal Padia in a contemporary home grown savoir-faire and elucidates the philosophy of the quartet and 12tone C.I.C.

1. “Angkor Vat” set’s the scene, composed in 5/4 it is a true east and west fusion, with rotund grooves it moves with omnipotence; the cello creates a foundation for the affecting flute to work over, the bass then brings solidity to the composition.

2. “Chichen Itza” is another amalgamation the world over with echoes deep in Asia; there is a certain hip-hop feel to the groove despite being in 7/8.

3. “King” is the hiatus of the E.P. a welcome break from the two previous hard-hitters. “King” grows from the beginning to the end dynamically, a nice halfway point to the release.

4. “9/8” is a J Dilla-influenced Saharan swinger in the time signature of 9/8. After the initial hip-hop groove it drops into a ride groove with an expeditious descending flute line. The composition then breaks down into a chord-based breakdown that finally mushrooms into a solo frenzy just before the outro.

5. “Simply Put…” was originally written to support the legendary Herbie Hancock at the Royal Festival Hall, one of the most distinguished venues in the capital. A highly melodic piece with strong concept, a palpitating rhythm section breakdown which then flows into another ebullient solo section. The track was fundamentally composed around a Herbie Hancock sample that was then abandoned for copyright purposes, although the name of the piece came from this sample “…simply put…” This E.P. is a taster of things to come, the genesis of something astronomical.

FUTURE

This ensemble is playing music to help people. Music is a public service and the quartet are firm believers in the mental, physical and spiritual power of the idiom. The main aim of the group is to relay truth, wisdom and energy to the listener and allow inspiration to flower. Speakers’ Corner Quartet trust that through expression, universal transcendence can and will take place.

If music

Track list

1A. Angkor Vat
2A. Simply Put…

3B. Chichen Itza
4B. King
5B. 9/8

Links

Youtube

Contact: