There’s not just an essential, but also an audible difference between an orchestrated, technical maelstrom and total improvisation. The former may sound chaotic or random but cannot match the complete, blissful freedom of the latter. The songs in this mix, however, lie somewhere on a spectrum between those two endpoints, tending towards spontaneous gesture without disregarding or eliminating the fragments of structure that still linger in the music. Some of them gradually fall back into a conventional meter, others remain formless and ease through fluid dynamic changes, and still others play rhythmic patterns so loosely that they often don’t appear to be rhythmic at all.

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00:00. Dilute – end of “Apple” from Grape Blueprints Pour Spinach Olive Grape (54º40′ or Fight!, 2002)

02:14. Storm & Stress – “And Third and Youngest, Unnamed” from Under Thunder and Fluorescent Lights (Touch and Go, 2000)

07:22. Gorge Trio – “Roof Halves and Dewdrop Gems” from Open Mouth, O Wisp (Skin Graft, 2004)

10:41. Coptic Light – “Mix the Races” from Coptic Light (No Quarter, 2005)

18:27. Who’s Your Favorite Son, God? – “Tapestry Mouth” from Out of Body Diva (KDVS Recordings, 2006)

20:40. Sister Iodine – “Western Lei” from Helle (Textile, 2004)

23:57. Fading Tapes – “O-bon” from Radio Okinawa (Katuktu Collective, 2018)

29:09. Jackie-O Motherfucker – “Dark Falcon” from Ballads of the Revolution (Fire, 2009)

33:46. zOoOoOm – “Ablution” from Eight My Heart (Condor, 2004)