★Not Two Records
First Thirst, Live at Cave12
Swiss drummer Nicolas Field (1975) has been collaborating with Japanese saxophone player living-legend Akira Sakata since his first visits in Japan in 2006. Nicolas Field is born in London in 1975. He studied drums and percussion at the Amsterdam Conservatorium (1996-2002), sonology at The Hague Conservatorium (1997-2002) and "Art and media" at HEAD in Geneva (2007-2009). He has received multiple awards and was artist in residence at the Swiss Institute in Rome (2010-11), AirAntwerpen (2011), Be…
Diversity
To celebrate the forty years of career of the Slovenian musician the label Not Two has now releases Diversity, a sumptuous box of five CDs recorded live and in studio in the company of the best of the old and new European avant-garde, with Evan Parker, Lotte Anker, Phil Minton, Rafal Mazur & Agusti Fernandez among others. Zlatko Kaucic is an elusive musician. When you expect him to be in a specific sound place, he is already somewhere else. Kaucic is a musician who has developed a very personal …
Hotel America
By any standards and from several directions, Hotel America is demanding work. It’s a five-movement piece stretching to 76-minutes. Composer Szilárd Mezei conducts an ensemble of 15 musicians and three actor/singers and employs musical methodologies ranging from densely composed to free jazz and free improvisation. The verbal content is also challenging: the actor/singers perform lengthy poems in Hungarian, a language little-used outside Hungary and a few surrounding territories.Hotel America is…
Latitude 41.88
The DKV Trio is one of the most exciting ensembles working in contemporary improvised music. Featuring Hamid Drake (drums), Kent Kessler (bass), and Ken Vandermark, the band has been active since the mid 1990s and has released eleven recordings, including their most recent album, which came out in the autumn of 2016: Collider (that features the trio paired with the Scandinavian group, The Thing).2017 promises to be an exceptional year for the band: they will be releasing a new album on the label…
Live In Tel Aviv
"If ever a group deserved the title of “free jazz power trio”, it would be this one. Legendary reedist Brötzmann, American trombonist Steve Swell and the mighty Nilssen-Love have been playing together since early 2015, and have two masterful live sets under their belt, Krakow Nights and Live in Copenhagen.Live in Tel Aviv, which documents an October ‘16 performance by the trio, is the perfect entry-point for those who might be intimidated by the relatively long lengths of those prior albums - at…
Frode Gjerstad With Hamid Drake And William Parker
Featuring Frode Gjerstad on alto sax & clarinet, William Parker on contrabass and Hamid Drake on drums & percussion. Norwegian saxist Frode Gjerstad is one of the most prolific and hard working of all European saxists, a career that stretches back some forty plus years, with upwards of 100 releases during his long tenure. Mr. Gjerstad is forever juggling several bands simultaneously: Detail (with John Stevens & Johnny Dyani), Calling Signals (with Nick Stephens), Ultralyd (Scandinavian noise/roc…
Jellyspace
eruption of energy and musicality! The group play with a forward energy that takes off right from the start - Mikołaj Trzaska on alto and baritone saxophones, Peter Ole Jørgensen on percussion and percussion, Rafał Mazur bass guitar.Mikolaj Trzaska is ne of the main figures of Polish avan-jazz, free improvised music scene. Cofounder and saxophonist of Miłość, one of the main pillars of so called yass scene. The group cooperated with among others Lester Bowie and Tomasz Stańko. They recorded f…
On the A and on the B
Per-Ake Holmlander is born in 1957 in Skellefteå in the very north of Sweden. Holmlander received his diploma in classical tuba in 1983 at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm with Michael Lind as a teacher. Holmlander has always worked simultaneously with improvisation, jazz and rock music as well as classical and contemporary music.As an improviser Holmlander has worked with - Eje Thelin, Marilyn Crispell, Paul Lovens, Folke Rabe, Phil Minton, Sten Sandell, Sven-Åke Johansson, Mats Persson,…
Hidros6
"A significant part of the success is down to the amazing tour de force by Norwegian experimental vocalist Stine Janvind Motland who brings an affecting mix of vulnerability, sexuality and sheer prowess to the party. Gustafsson selected a line from each of 20 favorite Little Richard songs to serve as the basic text for Motland to embroider. Via a graphic score Mats Gustafsson also ensures ample solo space for his illustrious cast, as well as composed sections peppered throughout the performance.…
Past Present
"The DKV Trio formed in the summer of 1994. Our early years of work took place in Chicago at The Bop Shop on West Division Avenue, the Lunar Cabaret on North Lincoln Avenue, and at the original Velvet Lounge, when it was still on South Indiana Avenue. The band's first album, a limited edition CD recorded by Malachi Ritscher at the Lunar Cabaret and released by Bruno Johnson on his label, Okka Disk, underscored a transformation that was taking place on the Chicago music scene - new groups, new pl…
A Woman’s Work
A monumental 8xCD box overview on Joëlle Léandre (born 12 September 1951 in Aix-en-Provence, France) a legendary double bassist, vocalist, and composer active in new music and free improvisation. A staggering, foundational body of work from one of the most radical and influencial avantgarde performer of the 20th century. In the field of contemporary music, she has performed with Pierre Boulez's Ensemble Inter Contemporain, and worked with Merce Cunningham and John Cage. Both Cage and Giacinto Sc…
Mad Dogs On The Loose
CD#1 1. Maya Homburger • Hans Koch • Herb Robertson • Raymond Strid [08:42] 2. Johannes Bauer • Barry Guy • Paul Lytton [13:49] 3. Johannes Bauer • Barry Guy • Paul Lytton [04:11] 4. Agustí Fernández • Trevor Watts • Evan Parker [19:16] 5. Mats Gustafsson • Hans Koch • Per-Åke Holmlander [05:41] 6. Mats Gustafsson • Hans Koch • Per-Åke Holmlander [03:43] 7. Mats Gustafsson • Hans Koch • Per-Åke Holmlander [03:16] CD#2 1. Johannes Bauer solo [09:40] 2. Agustí Fernández • Raymond Strid [14:24] 3.…
Tensegrity
"Here the 14 members of British bassist Barry Guy’s Blue Shroud Band, gathered in Krakow to perform the bassist’s orchestral Blue Shroud, were recorded in Small Formations. The set features 26 tracks where band members from 10 countries demonstrate their skills. Some improvisations are unexpected, as when four reed players stack up so many timbres that are alternately shrill, subterranean, harsh and gentle, that it appears critical mass is reached. Then they’re joined by serpent-player Michael G…
Sound In Motion In Sound
“You never know the value of what you have till you lose it.” In the case of DKV Trio, we’ve only recently become fully aware of the truthfulness of this statement. Indeed, we’ve missed them very much during their “hibernation” (early 2000s to 2008). Luckily, they are back in full force and they have been showering us with great releases for the last couple of years. There’s even better news: Hamid Drake’s (drums and percussion), Kent Kessler’s (bass), and Ken Vandermark’s (reeds) new mammoth …