Atavistic Records is an American rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 and jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

  based in Chicago, Illinois, known particularly for its No Wave

No Wave

No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...

 and free jazz

Free jazz

Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...

 recordings. It has released albums by Glenn Branca

Glenn Branca

Glenn Branca is an American avant-garde composer and guitarist known for his use of volume, alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series. In 2008 he was awarded an unrestricted grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.-Beginnings: 1960s and early 1970s:Branca...

, Nels Cline

Nels Cline

Nels Cline is an American guitarist and composer, currently the lead guitarist of alternative rock band Wilco. David Carr of the New York Times describes Cline as "one of the best guitarists in any genre."-Career:...

, Lydia Lunch

Lydia Lunch

Lydia Lunch is an American singer, poet, writer, and actress whose career was spawned by the New York No Wave scene...

, Peter Brötzmann

Peter Brötzmann

Peter Brötzmann is a German artist and free jazz saxophonist and clarinetist.Brötzmann is among the most important European free jazz musicians. His rough, lyrical timbre is easily recognized on his many recordings.-Early life:...

, various Ken Vandermark

Ken Vandermark

Ken Vandermark is an American jazz composer and saxophone and clarinet player.A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered compositions, which typically balance intricate orchestration with passionate...

 projects, Pinetop Seven

Pinetop Seven

Pinetop Seven is an American band from Chicago, Illinois. The group initially revolved around three core members, supplemented by instruments such as double bass, accordion, slide guitar, banjo, and mandolin; more recent recordings have a more fluid lineup and increasingly orchestral textures...

, Swans

Swans (band)

Swans are an influential American post-punk band initially active from 1982 to 1997, led by singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Michael Gira. The band was one of the few groups to emerge from the early 1980s New York No Wave scene and stay intact into the next decade. Formed by Gira in...

, Elliott Sharp

Elliott Sharp

Elliott Sharp is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer.A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s, Sharp has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from blues, jazz, and orchestral music to noise, no wave rock,...

, Larry Ochs

Larry Ochs (musician)

Larry Ochs is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.Ochs studied trumpet briefly but concentrated on tenor and sopranino saxophones. He worked as a record producer and founded his own label, Metalanguage Records, in 1978, in addition to operating the Twelve Stars studio in California...

, Mars

Mars (band)

Mars was a New York City No Wave band formed by vocalist Sumner Crane in 1975. He was joined by China Burg , Mark Cunningham , and artist Nancy Arlen , and briefly by guitarist Rudolph Grey. The band played one live gig under the name China before changing it to Mars...

, Davey Williams

Davey Williams (musician)

Davey Williams is an American free improvisation and avant-garde music guitarist. In addition to his solo work, he has been noted for his membership in Curlew and his collaborations with LaDonna Smith.-Biography:...

, Brian Harnetty, and Poem Rocket

Poem Rocket

Poem Rocket is an experimental U.S. art rock/ noise rock band based currently in rural New York, originally hailing from New York City.-The Real Periphery: Biography:...

, among others. The label was founded in Columbus, Ohio

Columbus, Ohio

Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...

 in 1985 by Kurt Kellison, initially as a video label producing live VHS recordings by bands such as Live Skull

Live Skull

-Overview:Live Skull created abrasive no wave music not unlike their 1980s contemporaries Sonic Youth, Swans, Rat at Rat R, The Chameleons, Mars, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and Band of Susans. Their music featured angular guitar parts interspersed with bleak, quieter passages, for a haunting...

 and The Flaming Lips

The Flaming Lips

The Flaming Lips are an American alternative rock band, formed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1983.Melodically, their sound contains lush, multi-layered, psychedelic rock arrangements, but lyrically their compositions show elements of space rock, including unusual song and album titles—such as "What...

. The label was relocated when Kellison moved to Chicago in 1988.

Atavistic's Unheard Music Series

Unheard Music Series

The Unheard Music Series is an imprint of the American record label Atavistic Records. The series, running since 2000, is curated by Chicago writer and producer John Corbett and focuses mainly on free jazz recordings from the 1960s and 1970s...

 imprint focuses on the reissuing of out-of-print free improvisation

Free improvisation

Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....

/ avant-garde jazz

Avant-garde jazz

Avant-garde jazz is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. Avant-jazz often sounds very similar to free jazz, but differs in that, despite its distinct departure from traditional harmony, it has a predetermined structure over which ...

recordings.