NUNATAK RECORDS
music by Dennis Rea and fellow travelers
Catalog
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Axolotl: Flight of the Grackle - Live at I-Spy, Seattle 7.24.2000  Nunatak 010 Paedomorphic avant-rock band Axolotl confounded cochleas in Seattle for several years around the turn of the millennium. Spearheaded by dastardly guitar duo Dennis Rea and Bill Horist and propelled by bass invader Ryan Berg and drum levitator Olli Klomp, this first-ever Axolotl release commemorates Olli's last gig with the band, a fiery set of Rea and Horist originals.
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 Nunatak 009 Stackpole was a turn-of-the-millennium free-jazz quartet made up of prominent Seattle improvisers Dennis Rea, Wally Shoup, Geoff Harper, and Gregg Keplinger. Their eponymous album was named the Pacific Northwest's "Best Outside Jazz" release of 2000 by Earshot Jazz. “Together the four master a completely assured amalgam of idioms in a pulsing nonce-music, a free-improv supercharged free jazz that roars, keens, and soars, and yet can just as convincingly dissolve into moody quiescence.” - Earshot Jazz
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Dennis Rea Tanabata Ensemble: Black River Transect  Nunatak 008 Black River Transect captures all of one 2013 concert, and part of another, by the Tanabata Ensemble formed by guitarist/composer Dennis Rea with his friend and mentor, the internationally heralded trombonist Stuart Dempster. The selections here are a blend of Rea's compositions and improvisations based on loose organizational devices, performed by some of the most adept and sensitive players then active in the Pacific Northwest. .
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Tempered Steel: Chapel improvisation 08.08.08  Nunatak 007 For more than 20 years, Seattle-based Tempered Steel (Ffej, Frank Junk, and Dennis Rea) has thumbed its collective nose at musical convention with seamless improvisations on amplified, electronically enhanced thumb pianos (kalimbas), as exemplified in this memorable 2008 performance pristinely recorded by H. Tait Waterman.
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Identity Crisis: Banished Souls: The Lost 1991 China Record Company Sessions  Nunatak 006 Formed in 1990 by US and European expatriates living in Tainan, Taiwan, Identity Crisis were pioneers in introducing multi-genre creative music to audiences on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Produced by Yang Shichun for the China Record Company in Chengdu, Sichuan, in April 1991, this is among the earliest specimens of progressive Western music recorded in China.
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Identity Crisis: Rogue Province: The Lost 1991 Taipei Sessions  Nunatak 005 Formed in 1990 by US and European expatriates in Tainan, Taiwan, Identity Crisis were pioneers in introducing multi-genre creative music to audiences on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. This 1991 session produced by George Soler for Taiwan's Crystal Records at Life Studios in Taipei captures the band in peak form.
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Ed Petry & Dennis Rea: Duwamps Duets  Nunatak 004 Ed Petry (1955-2021) was a guitarist for whom the term ‘singular’ was no mere hyperbole, an under-the-radar virtuoso whose probing musical mind reconnoitered remote harmonic and melodic territory. These spontaneous duet encounters with kindred guitarist Dennis Rea were recorded by Rob Quattro in Seattle in 2007 and remixed and mastered shortly after Ed’s passing in 2021 by Pete Comley.
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Rich Hinklin with Dennis Rea and Don Berman: Red Fable  Nunatak 003 Rich Hinklin (1962-2021) was a much-loved presence on the adventurous fringe of the Pacific Northwest rock scene, a gifted multi-instrumentalist whose work combined taste, technique, and humor. This improvised session by a version of his rotating Red Fable project serves as a fitting capstone on Rich's musical legacy.
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Dennis Rea / Wally Shoup / Tom Zgonc: Subduction Zone  Nunatak 002 Featuring guitarist Dennis Rea, the late alto saxophonist and Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame honoree Wally Shoup (1944-2024), and drummer Tom Zgonc, Subduction Zone captures three of Seattle's most distinctive instrumentalists in uninhibited full flight. This improvised outing finds the highly simpatico trio in rare form, serving up hyperkinetic fusion, noir jazz, and eldritch experimentalia in a panoply of incandescent sounds.
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 Nunatak 001 Tempered Steel features Ffej, Frank Junk, and Dennis Rea playing amplified, electronically enhanced thumb pianos, conjuring everything from phantom harpsichords and subterranean percussion to vintage musique concrète. Recommended to partisans of Harry Partch and John Cage's prepared piano music.
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