ICP Complete Box Set

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In a previous life, travelling as a record man, the question came up wherever I went. Could I get hold of a particular ICP release? An early pressing, long out of print, its sleeve hand-made by the musicians and never reissued. The Instant Composers Pool had built one of the most important catalogues in European improvised music — and almost none of it was accessible anymore.

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That gap is what this project set out to close.

Founded in Amsterdam in 1967 by pianist Misha Mengelberg and drummer Han Bennink — who had already played together on Eric Dolphy's landmark Last Date — ICP released fifty records across more than four decades. Free jazz, contemporary composition, Fluxus-rooted music theatre: a body of work that helped European improvised music define itself on its own terms.

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To make the box possible, a crowdfunding campaign was launched on pre-subscription: if enough people committed in advance, we would produce it. They did.

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The result is a strictly limited edition bringing all fifty ICP releases together on CD for the first time. Alongside the music: a photo book compiled with Pieter Boersma, drawn from his personal archive of decades spent documenting the band. And a construction sheet taken directly from Misha Mengelberg's handwritten score of Met welbeleefde groet van de kameel — his instructions, in his own hand, for sawing a theatre chair into the shape of a camel.

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Every box was painted and stamped together with Han Bennink, then hand-numbered. Each one unique. Each one a small piece of history that almost stayed out of reach.