The Barnyard Records catalogue keeps growing with three new releases: It’s Only Life by Blah Blah 666; Toronto (Duets) 2007 featuring none other than Anthony Braxton and Toronto saxophonist Kyle Brenders; and Freedman, with Justin Haynes on ukelele and Jean Martin on suitcase.

A meeting between two of the most celebrated double bassists in improvised music, Barre Phillips and Joëlle Léandre’s À l’improviste, recieved an honorable mention as one of the best new release of 2008 in All About Jazz New York.

In 1991, Rainer Wiens found himself inside Burma as the Karen Rebel Army were fighting to overthrow the military dictatorship, which still rules the country today. Free Burma is an idiosyncratic mix of rhythmic complexity and textural variety, old and new, north and south. The album is dedicated to the people of Burma and all proceeds will go towards helping that cause.

Founded in 1994, Nicolas Caloia’s Ratchet Orchestra releases its first title, recorded live at La Sala Rossa in November 2007. Featuring 30 of Montréal’s finest improvisors, including Gordon M Allen, Chris Burns, Alexandre Grogg, Pierre Labbé, Philippe Lauzier, Damian Nisenson, Jean René, Sam Shalabi, and Joshua Zubot, the Ratchet Orchestra lolls between the sublime and the ridiculous.

An exploratory music that is constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed. BASE, Antoine Berthiaume’s most recent opus, finds him teamed up with no other than renown American guitarist Elliott Sharp. A disc to discover!

Documentary sounds recordings, interviews and soundscapes heard along the St. Lawrence River, underwater, the voices of peoples living on its shores. A sound portrait of the St Lawrence River, Face à la dérive is a marriage of acousmatic sounds and acoustic instruments.