Insane Beard: that Moeck instrument is a baroque type, and for what you do I'd think a Renaissance style one would be better. The Mollenhauer Dream Alto is probably the best at mid-price - I haven't got one but I've tried one and I'd have got it if I didn't already have something comparable (a Hopf Renaissance Praetorius, now sold as "Kobliczek"). I use a Dream soprano a lot, mine is in the Chistmassy red-and-gold colour scheme.

Anyone here got one of the Nadishana instruments? I'm tempted by the convertible A/G "futuristic fujara", but I'd rather like to hear what it does on the traditional Slovak fujara tunes first - the demos on his website are of his own material, whereas the Slovak tunes are meant for the traditional tuning and must sound different in ET.

Extended techniques: the book you need for that is Walter von Hauwe's "The Modern Recorder Player", which costs a LOT more than a basic recorder. One trick I've been using a lot lately is vocalization, which I learned in Moldavia this summer from listening to Andras Hodorog and Istvan Laszlo Legedi - it's standard in Csango furulya and kaval playing. You can hear Hodorog doing it on some of his YouTube clips. It gives an aggressive buzz to the sound which makes the recorder sound very unlike its normal self. I use it either just to make myself heard over fiddles and accordions, or to make a sound which is obviously distinct from that of a whistle - I sometimes play in a session with a very-out-of-tune whistle player, and if she joins in with something I'm doing on the descant recorder, my vocalized buzz makes it obvious which of us is which.