This label was founded in 1994 by Martin Archer and Mick Beck, and was initially the CD imprint for releases by their own many and various projects.  In recent years, the label has opened up to include works by a wide range of artists.   Limited in its scope only by the imagination of the musicians, the sounds to be found on the label vary between electronic rock music, free jazz, extended songform, improvised music, and other releases which simply cannot be categorised.  Please do spend some time browsing around our Bandcamp site and listening to the various music examples to be found here.

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USA commentator Darren Bergstein wrote:  “Multi-instrumentalist Archer has built a formidable catalogue that is genre-defying in similar ways to contemporaries ECM, Hubro, Sofa, Hat Hut, et al: ostensibly a ‘jazz label’ (which takes the very meaning of the word ‘jazz’ to heretofore unconsidered heights of stylistic fancy), Discus has long transcended such literal trappings which means that Archer uses it as a conduit to release whatever sonic muse he, and that of his fellow artists, begs to pursue. This has resulted in a broad and consistently marvellous array of work that bridges the divide between compositional rigor and improvisational abandon, whipping elements of each into a heady, ultimately bracing and wholly satisfying, stew”

Read a biography of Martin Archer by Duncan Heining.

Site design by Nick Robinson. Our logo artwork was created by Walt Shaw.

Contact Martin Archer via the contact page on this site.