Maggie Nicols

While she might be best known as an improviser (most notably in the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, the Feminist Improvising Group and more recently with the likes of Les Diaboliques), Maggie Nicols’ talents stretch into song, dance, poetry, performance and composition.

Nicols' first solo album, modestly recorded on her computer after teaching herself how to use Garageband during lock-down, brings forth her doubts, anxieties, loves and desires in a 13-part musical journey. Webbed through piano ballads, playful improvised ditties, stories, poetry and multi-layered vocal arrangements, 'Creative Contradiction' feels like a long-overdue catch up with a close friend.

Siapiau is Welsh for 'Shapes', as the four members of the band create shapes in the air out of apparently nothing. The beauty of improvisation is that, at its best, it creates something perfectly fitted to the moment it was created in.

Take a little Mr. Bungle, mix in some Elliot Sharp, add a dash of Claudia Phillips, and you may just get something akin to this strikingly outlandish rarity from 1982. The voice of Maggie Nicols is the solder that holds everything together, while Ulrich Lask’s laser-like sax and labored synth weave an industrial spell at every turn of the set’s assembly line. The bubbly electronics of “Drain Brain” spray-paint the malaise of a post-punk modernity, where duties and obligations engage one another in a rather debilitating tango with the children’s rhyme “Rain, rain, go away.”

A long overdue reappearance of the third Spontaneous Music Ensemble LP. One version of OLIV features Kenny Wheeler and Derek Bailey soloing over a four-person voice and saxophone drone which is eventually joined by a piano/bass/drums rhythm section. The second version is an improvisation by the quartet of John Stevens, Maggie Nicols, Trevor Watts and Johnny Dyani one of the great early examples of the free improvisation era, and the recording debut of Nicols. Also included are one and a half takes of FAMILIE by an eleven piece group, the earliest recorded example of a large group SME performance.

His playing here reminds me of a didgeridoo sometimes, not only because he uses circular breathing. I never thought about it, but actually the sounds of a trombone and a didgeridoo have a few things in common. So check this out if you love Free Jazz or Didgeridoo. Never re-released.

After four CDs with the Painting Jazz Duo, flanked by the Galag pianist Massimiliano Bruno Belloni, and "Our World", in duo with the percussionist Alessandro "Pacho" Rossi, the collaboration between saxophonist Emanuele Passerini and the Dodicilune label continues. Distributed in Italy and abroad by Ird and in the best online stores by Believe Digital, "Trio geometrics" is released on Tuesday 10 November.

Pedal Steel guitar innovator Susan Alcorn in a mostly solo release, beautifully performing 4 lush compositions by Astor Piazzolla, with bassist Michael Formanek joining for the Alcorn-penned "Suite for AHL".