Jazz /
?Who Stole The Polka?
1991 release ** Guy Klucevsek plays music by William Obrecht, David Garland, John King, Fred Frith, Peter Zummo, Bill Ruyle, Lois V. Vierk, Phillip Johnston, Thomas Albert, Carl Stone, Mary Jane Leach, David Mahler, Elliott Sharp, A. Leroy. ?Who Stole the Polka? is the second volume of pieces that accordionist Guy Klucevsek commissioned from composers ranging widely over the contemporary new music scene in the mid-'80s. For pure wicked fun, it probably exceeds its companion, Polka Dots and Laser…
3ree
2007 release ** "Tanake is unexpected music, hearth lungs sweat (even brain but kept in a hidden place), is music mentally physic, is music physically mental, is twilight at dawn, bitter honey, fresh decomposition, joy in crying. tanake is music generated by her 3ree sweethearts... In the early days [by the way: in the first album "tsu.zu.ku" (2000) tanake meant to reach structure by means of improvisation, but time left the songwriter soul all alone, and tanake's been surrounded by the never en…
The New York Composers Orchestra: First Program in Standard Time
Acoustic jazz recording featuring Holcomb's eleven-minute title-track, Lenny Pickett's ten-minute Dance Music for Composer Orchestra, Elliott Sharp's eight-minute Skew and Horvitz's nine-minute Paper Money and an eleven-minute composition by Anthony Braxton.
Bits, bots and signs
Ever since Otomo got into his minimal misuse of stereo equipment phase, a collaboration with Swiss toaster torturers Voice Crack was on the cards. Although Otomo's refraction of high end sinewaves around cranial interiors may not seem like an ideal partner for Norbert Mšslang and Andy Guhl's usual industrial clang, attempts have obviously been made to find a common ground. There's an intense focus upon the fine detail of the unfolding electronic fields, with the Swiss duo providing a constantly …
#2
2006 release ** Packaged in oversize cardboard sleeve. "DeK (Die Entartene Kunst, i.e. Degenerate Art) is a group of ""contemporary improvisation"", understood as Instant Composition, in the best European and non-European radical tradition (from Nuova Consonanza to AMM, to Buthc Morris). The ensemble, open, hosts numerous musicians, who alternate from time to time. The core group is made up of Massimo Daolio, Margaret Leitgeb, Davide Negrini, Andrea Bini, Paolo Boschi, Alessandro Verdecchia. In …
do
A groundbreaking release from two youngish Japanese improvisers. Sachiko M plays sample-less sampler, and Nakamura uses the no-input mixing board--both instruments which conceptually produce no sound, yet these two conjure it out, somehow."Do" was recorded live in Europe and Tokyo last summer, and features three improvisations varying in length from just over two minutes to slightly under 40. While the shorter tracks are worthwhile and hold moments of greatness, it is the first, very long track …
Points and Slashes
Over the past decade, Swiss-based Günter Müller has collaborated with many of the most prominent Tokyo-based musicians, recording CDs with Otomo Yoshihide, Taku Sugimoto, Sachiko M, Masahiko Okura, and Toshimaru Nakamura. Points and Slashes is the latest of these, a duo collaboration with guitar wizard Tetuzi Akiyama.It's impossible to pin down Akiyama, a musician of diverse interests and activities, with a brief description. He has been playing electric guitar since he was 13, and formed his fi…
Ointment
Tania Chen: objects, toys, violin, piano ; Steve Beresford: objects, electronics, toys, trumpet, water. Pieces beginning with 'C' recorded by Tim Fletcher at The Bonnington, Vauxhall, London on December 18 2002. Event organised by Adam and Jonathan Bohman. All other pieces recorded by Steve Beresford in west London - pieces beginning with 'L' on August 7 2003 and the rest on June 12 2003. All pieces composed by Tania Chen and Steve Beresford. Edited by Steve Beresford in March 2004. Not to rub i…
The Issue at Hand
The musicians who perform together on this CD are as unlikely a group of individuals that you are ever likely to find. Yoshikazu Iwamoto brings a cultural past that has deep aesthetic roots in Japanese Buddhism, while John Tilbury's classical European training brings a sensibility that has matured through contract with cultivated traditions of learning and discipline. Eddie Prévost by his presence draws everything together into an indivisible whole, through responses that have been honed from ye…
Filth Pharmacy
2004 release ** All music recorded at "Garaget", Solna, Sweden. Andreas Axelsson - percussion, drum machines, CD player; Herman Muntzing - flexichord, sampler; Martin Kuchen - soprano and baritone saxophone, found objects.
From The Diary of Dog Drexel
"The Diary of Dog Drexel" is a suite of five movements, each of which programmatically portrays an emotional state from the diary. One of the ideas behind "Dog" was to thoroughly blend improvised and composed elements. In the first four movements "Conflicted, Pissed, Bummed, and Agitated" there are at almost all times at least one thread of composition and another of improvisation. The balance between the elements shifts steadily. Muddying the waters further is that many of the extended techniqu…
Octante
2005 release ** Limited edition of 200 copies. "The Iberian trio of Fages, Barberan and Costa Monteiro have been working together in Barcelona for long enough now to have developed a distinct language of tension, scraped metallic dynamics and a rough, textural abrasiveness. A trio with a great, off-kilter and unexpected instrumentation (there can’t be many acoustic turntable/ engines, trumpet and accordion trios kicking about Barcelona – although it’s a while since I’ve been there) they build lo…
The butterfly and the bee
Following the success of their very first performance together at the 2004 FREEDOM OF THE CITY festival (heard on Emanem 4215), Roger Smith and Louis Moholo-Moholo went into the studio to record some more. Their second meeting went so well that they recorded enough duo improvisations for a complete CD. The resulting music is heard complete, with Smith on Spanish guitar and Moholo on augmented drum set.
Grammar
CD of trio improvisations by the Punctual Trio, released on Rossbin Records.
Lou Mallozzi: turntables, CDs, Microphones, Oscillator ; Fred Lonberg-Holm: Cello ; Carlos Zingaro: Violin. Recorded by Pete Wenger at Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago, 28 May 2003.
+
The saying goes that, given typewriters and an infinite amount of time, a roomful of monkeys could write the complete works of Shakespeare. By that logic, if the same chimps were given a table-full of consumer electronics and a couple of hours, they would likely produce a decent album of electronic, improvised music. I feel safe in guaranteeing, however, that it wouldn't be anywhere as compelling and listenable as the new recording by this quartet of highly developed mammals known as poire_z. Ov…
Dentro
Somewhere between Musique Concrete and a kind of abstract improvisational work, using extended techniques and electrification that disconnects sound from any recognisable source. A fascinating first record that sits between studio improvisation and extensive post production processing composition.
Music + one
2006 release ** Music + One, created in collaboration with Myles Boisen, is a collection of solo improvisations that is meant to be played along with by improvisers. The instructions given to the participants before recording were simple: improvise for 3 to 4 minutes, as if you were playing music with your shadow. This was to allow room for others to improvise with the recording. To test this, we invited the musicians to play along with one of the tracks at the 21Grand Performance Space & Art Ga…
Number nine
Two Toronto musicians and a visitor from London formed this trio that has worked on both sides of the Atlantic. Group improvisations on acoustic guitar, alto saxophone and percussion that cover the whole gamut from dense high-energy to sparse interactions.
Hidros One
2025 stock A composed improvisation, or possibly the other way around – this is one way of describing the music played by Mats Gustafsson and the Nu Ensemble, a multinational group of improvisational musicians.
The saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, born in 1964, became interested in improvisational music at an early age, inspired by among others the German Peter Brötzmann and the Britt Evan Parker.
The Nu Ensemble was a loosely structured, irregularly convened radio and concert project built around …
Agape
Martin Küchen: prepared and non prepared alto saxophone. David Stackens: guitar, low-budget electronics. Recorded at Fylkingen, Stockholm by Andreas Berthling, 16th of May 2004. Mastered by Andreas Berthling, David Stackens and Martin Küchen.