Michael Ozone, the character who's just dropped his debut offering for the ESP Institute this July, is back with a remixed version of his jungle-tuff "Perfect Systems" EP. On Side A, Steve Summers (a name that's been up in your face over the last year, and one of the key figures in our cousin's L.I.E.S. camp) has taken Perfect Systems for an imperfect ride, jacking it up as expected while keeping the somewhat sinister mood of the original. On the flip, Young Marco (who has become quite a resident at the ESP Institute) strips down Hetrotopia to its core, letting you realize how a well-programmed track can maintain its melodic and hypnotic sense, even when all that's left is percussion. More

Recorded on September 10, 1964, prior to his well-known association with John Coltrane, this eponymous album (later renamed Pharoah's First) is the debut release of the iconic tenor saxophonist.(Yes, there are some spelling oddities here: the artist -- birth name Ferrell -- only later changed the spelling from the standard Pharaoh to the more personalized Pharoah.)With one foot in mainstream jazz -- pianist Jane Getz had played with Charles Mingus -- and the other, tentatively at times, in the avant-garde, this is a fascinating glimpse of Sanders's style before he wielded the unremitting fierceness of his playing with Coltrane and the modal mysticism of his later solo albums on Impulse. Interestingly, in recent years he has deployed a more polished version of this sort of vant-flavored bop, bringing his career full circle and strongly suggesting that the hybrid heard here was not due to any failure of nerve on his debut but rather was the cornerstone of his conception.ESP-Disk' has issued this album under three different covers, for its 21st-century reissue on vinyl, we have chosen to use the second and most beautiful. It is augmented with liner notes by a current ESP-Disk' artist, tenor saxophonist Ras Moshe Burnett of The Red Microphone, who can be hear accompanying Amina Baraka on their eponymous 2017 release More

Last year's acclaimed Sea Power & Change EP, a melancholic project from the mind of celebrated Portuguese powerhouse Tiago, is now revisited through the lens of three essential ESP Institute artists. Side A gives us a take on Strange Fruit by our heroes Soft Rocks — a smacked up dub/boogie rendition leaving the beautifully dark mood intact whilst twisting the the rhythms toward the tough side. On side B, Secret Circuit (Eddie Ruscha of Laughing Light of Plenty, and soon to release his solo release for ESP) stuffs Wild Combination in his saddle and takes us for a ride through a futuristic version of the Wild West with a funky bassline and distant whistles, only to be rounded out by a blissed-out epic re-rendering of Yesterday Is Gone by Somberero Galaxy's Jonny Nash. Its a family affair. More