★ezz-thetics
Beyond Scope
"Ultimately, the best free improvisation performances—and the best films—are those that refuse to be bound by rigid formulas yet still adhere to a fundamental sense of logic and cohesion. They remind us that while structure is important, the real mag…
Speechless
"Speechless (2019) is an opera for 4 vocal soloists, bass orchestra and community choir, and is intended as a personal response to the plight of refugees worldwide. It inspired by the Australian Human Rights Commission report, ‘The Forgotten Children…
Tides In The Mirror
"Their differences intensify the soundscape. Francesca Gemmo provides a sensitive, contemplative, but deceptive lyricism, with memories of the wistful antique modes of Satie or Debussy’s impressionist palette twisted into shadowy subterranean echoes …
Follow A Very Heavy Person, First Visit
"First visit to the audio equivalent of a graphic novel. Follow A Very Heavy Person is more than an album—it is an experience, an inquiry, an adventure into the unknown, defying easy categorization and existing in the liminal space between music, poe…
Dissenting Voices with Elisabeth Flunger, Dominic Lash, Kathryn Williams
Elisabeth Flunger - bass drum Dominic Lash - double bass Kathryn Williams - bass flute "Recording the Dissenting Voices confirmed the extent of their divergence from The Future That Never Was. Music always has something to do with the sonic architect…
Thelonious Monk With Sonny Rollins 1953 To 1957 (Revisited)
Though they may not have recorded together until 1953, when Rollins was 23 years old, Sonny was introduced to Monk while a senior in high school, already part of a cadre of young neighborhood jazz neophytes. Monk became a mentor to them, offering hom…
To Walk On Eggshells
"Christian Weber said in an interview for “Jazz’N’More": No matter how I move along the timeline, my attention is focused on what is to come. At the same time, I always keep in mind what happened before, without analyzing. This way, I avoid the impro…
About (or On), First Visit
"A standard takes on a new shape when it is realized through Trio New York’s methods. Their improvised preludes promote refreshed readings studded with bright accents and pungent embellishments, reinforcing the qualities that have enabled these tunes…
Our Thing To In ’N Out
Joe Henderson Our Thing To In ’N Out Revisited notes: The Blue Note label in the early and mid 1960s was a haven for musicians engaged in the process of expanding the jazz vocabulary with unconventional harmonic strategies and new compositional infra…
Die Unwucht
Big Tip! As poets from Shakespeare to Heine have recognised, “the forest” is not just about grandeur and most expansive of gestures; it is also about intimacy and there is a remarkable intimacy to Christopher Kunz’s and Florian Fischer’s music. The f…
In The Shadow
Joe Maneri’s last Microtonal recordings from the year 2002. These are not typically arranged songs, but asymmetrical, asynchronous constructs that develop from simultaneous, complimentary but peripheral gestures of the mind and heart. The harmonic co…
Introducing A Very Heavy Person, First Visit
First visit to the audio equivalent of a graphic novel.
Luigi Nono w/ Ludwig van Beethoven, First Visit
The relationship between Ludwig van Beethoven’s "op. 132 string quartet" and Luigi Nono’s "Fragmente – Stille, an Diotima" spans 155 years while sharing several conceptual dimensions – among them, their respective composers’ intense idealism in the p…
Prophecy Live, First visit
First visit live offers new mastering of the trio’s first performance at the cellar cafe, New York City 1964.
Floater & Syndrome - The Upright Piano Sessions, Revisited
"It was once said of Paul Bley that he was the only pianist who could make a concert grand sound like an
upright. While that is not literally true, or only partly so, it makes a point that strikes home on these often
strange, offbeat, otherworldly …
Live Lugano 1984, First Visit
"The special qualities of this music emerge from the focus on Lacy’s soprano saxophone in this unique instrumentation; the transparency and intimacy of the bass and guitar create a nuanced background set against the variety of improvisational strateg…
Atlantic Puffin
"This, it seems to me, is the great strength of Sophie Lüssi’s music here on Atlantic Puffin. It is clearly skilled and doesn't deal in casual approximations. It is built on solid technique, a brilliant appropriation of classical violin methods in th…
Cecil Taylor Unit, Live At Fat Tuesday's February 10, 1980 First Visit
"This, the third release from the sequence of remarkable performances by Cecil Taylor’s Unit recorded at Fat. Tuesday’s in New York from 8-10 February 1980 (the previous two are It Is In the Brewing Luminous [Hat Hut], and Live At Fat Tuesday’s, Febr…
Net
"Would the following advice alone be sufficient? Look at the cover of this album, then close your eyes and listen to the wonderful performances of these two musicians. Because in the end, all art speaks for itself." – Rudolf Amstutz
At Sotto Il Mare, First Visit
"No music making can be entirely non-idiomatic. Removing the metaphor, the claim is that it is characterless, without personality. But despite his best intentions, perhaps, one can hear a range of influences in Bailey’s own work – even if jazz isn't …