★Tzadik
Fired City
Composer, theoretician, inventor and instrument builder Frank Denyer is a legendary figure in the Harry Partch/Scelsi tradition. His music is utterly unique and intensely personal, often requiring specialized new instruments of his own design and radical playing techniques. Fired City presents six of his most dynamic compositions in definitive performances supervised by the composer himself. Having worked closely with Denyer for many years, The Barton Workshop is unsurpassed in this repertoire a…
Soul Machine
Fima Ephron, the dynamic bassist for the psycho-semitic-avant-klez-band Hasidic New Wave steps out on his own for yet another new approach bringing Jewish music into the 21st Century. Soul Machine blends Jewish scales and sensibilities with jazz/rock fusion via Weather Report and late Miles. Boasting an incredible lineup of downtown’s newest jazz stars, Fima’s colorful program also features a moody remix collage by the talented composer/performer David Torn.
The Watchman
Active for over a decade, New York cellist Erik Friedlander is finally receiving due recognition, not just as a musician, but as a composer of note. These works display his unique take on Radical Jewish Culture - sweeping melodic lines (reminiscent of cantorial singing) in instrumental arrangements that are both adventurous and traditional. Friedlander's first album, Chimera, was released on Avant in 1995. He has performed and recorded with Framework, Joe Lovano, Myra Melford, Dave Douglas, Fred…
Being and Time
Norman Yamada is a brilliant young composer who has worked with Anthony Coleman, Marc Ribot, the Crosstown Ensemble, the Agon Orchestra and was previously heard on the Avant CD by Rough Assemblage. Being And Time, the first CD dedicated to his compositions for small ensembles is an atavistic exploration of rock gestures, ambient noise and today's post-modern malaise. A unique compositional statement from a new generation of genre-busting musical thinkers.
KOVED - A Tribute to Martin Weinberg
Whether singing in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino or French, Zahava Seewald is one of the most accomplished and soulful vocalists in the modern Jewish music scene. Following up on her very successful Tzadik debut Abi Gezint!, her latest recording takes a traditional klezmer repertory into a dynamic world mixing gypsy violins and Kurt Weill cabaret. Dedicated to the creative arranger/performer Martin Weinberg, whose premature death robbed Jewish music of one of its guiding lights, KOVED is a passionate …
Fragments - Modern Tradition
Naná Vasconcelos' Fragments - Modern Tradition presents a stunning collection of film scores by the world's foremost Brazilian percussionist, whose virtuosity is matched only by the originality of his compositional vision. Released on Tzadik in 1997, the album ranges from his trademark solo music to ensemble pieces featuring some of his favorite collaborators, weaving together award-winning film music that bridges traditional Brazilian rhythms with contemporary experimental approaches. Juvenal d…
Light Upon Light
Trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, improviser and theoretician, Wadada Leo Smith is one of the most important composers of our time. An original member of Chicago's AACM, his exciting pieces blending composition and mprovisation have been performed by many of the world's most important ensembles and soloists. Featuring an exotic composition for chamber ensemble and gamelan quartet, a beautiful solo piece for viola, a bass concerto written for virtuoso Bert Turetzky and two electronic pieces featu…
Luminous Axis (The Caravans Of Winter And Summer)
Luminous Axis (subtitled The Caravans of Winter and Summer) is an album by American jazz trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith recorded in 2002 and released on Tzadik Records' Composer Series. This adventurous recording marks one of Smith's most exciting forays into electronic music, featuring an extended suite for four laptops and trumpet, two duets with Ikue Mori, and a composition featuring percussionist William Winant. A relentless musical innovator since his early days in the Chicago AACM (Association…
TZ 7038
Gisburg's newest Tzadik recording couples two masterful compositions onto one disc. Her heartfelt opera for solo voice about the ups and downs of doomed and obsessive love is one of her most personal and striking compositional statements to date, a powerful combination of stark emotional content, minimalist melody and narrative charm. "Anna" shows Gisburg's profound command of classic instrumental writing - a lush and dramatic string quartet performed by the brilliant Cassatt Quartet.
Tunnel - Funnel
Daniel Goode (1936), composer and clarinetist, was born in New York, studied philosophy, and then music with Henry Cowell, Otto Luening, Pauline Oliveros and Kenneth Gaburo. He is director of the Electronic Music Studio of Rutgers University, and co-director of the DownTown Ensemble, which he co-founded in New York in 1983. Tunnel-Funnel, composed in 1985 is one of his most ambitious and exhilarating works. It was premiered in 1988 by the DownTown Ensemble conducted by David Gilbert, repeated at…
Flying Sparks and Heavy Machinery
Annie Gosfield's second amazing CD for Tzadik takes acoustic and electric music into dynamic new realms. Factory sounds…improvisation…lush sonorities…junk percussion…twangy guitars…classic minimalism…delicate harmonics…odd drones…rock…sirens…string quartets…driving rhythms…ambients…noise…complex structures…jack hammers and more from one of downtown's most interesting composers.
O Little Town Of East New York
Shelley Hirsch is a marvelous performer with remarkable vocal talents, charm and a wicked sense of humor. She is one of the best-knownimprovisers of the Downtown New York City scene, performing with virtually every major experimental artist in New York and Europe, but has thus far released only two albums of her own music (both released only in Europe). An award-winning radio play and Hirsch's most ambitious work, O Little Town Of East New York is a semi-autobiographical musical suite about grow…
Memories Are My Only Witness
A beautiful CD of quirky instrumentals from the hip mind of Yuka Honda, co-founder of the pop band Cibo Matto. Combining a wry sense of humor with wit, elegance and impeccable taste, Yuka’s charming instrumental miniatures cross all musical borders hypnotizing you with funky breakbeats, heartfelt melodies and nostalgic soundscapes. Recorded at her home studio and featuring longtime associates Duma Love, Timo Ellis, Bill Ware and Dougie Bowne, this is a breakthrough project for Yuka Honda, who is…
Riff and Transfiguration
It is truly an honor for Tzadik to release on its Composer Series a CD of music by Lee Hyla, one of America's most important composers of concert music. Concentrating on his dynamic music for piano, this exciting CD presents a fascinating sextet for hammered dulcimer, clarinet, piano and strings, and three solo piano compositions performed by Stephen Drury, Mia Chung and Judith Gordon, three of today's most acclaimed virtuosos. An exciting adventure into a new world of sound, space and texture f…
Songbird Suite
Born in California, raised in Texas and a New York resident since 1989, Susie Ibarra has become one of the most distinctive drummers in the world. Her latest project is a supergroup that crosses all borders. Driving rhythms and moody atmospheres are shaded with romance, lyricism and mystery. Featuring Susie’s exotic percussion, the classical violin of virtuoso Jennifer Choi, Craig Taborn’s angular pianistic fireworks and laptop electronics pioneer Ikue Mori, Songbird Suite is a delicate and comp…
Kuchinoha
Makigami Koichi is the leader of one of Japan's longest running underground bands, Hikashu, which has evolved from an electronic pop band to embrace world music, improvisation, noise and other styles. Makigami has recorded two previous albums on his own, including the star-studded, Zorn-produced Koroshi No Blues, a much sought-after import on Toshiba-EMI Japan. He has performed with Derek Bailey and Yamatsuka Eye, and is also the organizer of the monthly Tokyo performance of John Zorn's improvis…
Transmigrations: Gilgul
A unique fusion of traditional Yiddish song with country blues, rock and reggae by Kerouac-inspired cult hero Wolf Krakowski. Recorded in 1995 and originally available in a limited edition on his own label, Transmigrations: Gilgul is a soulful contemporary reading of Jewish folk and theater songs mixing the Old World with the New. Yiddish world-beat soul that will delight both young and old.
Goyrl: Destiny
In his dramatic follow-up to Transmigrations: Gilgul, Wolf Krakowski weaves unique and heartfelt world-beat soul stylings with Yiddish folk, theatre and pop songs to create a compelling international downtown sound rooted in the blues, country-rock, tango, reggae and native mameloshn. Produced by Frank London, this contemporary classic is the very embodiment of Old World meets the New.
Endless Shout
One of the world's leading composer/performers presents a dynamic collection of his most important recent works. Professor, musical scholar, author, composer, virtuoso trombonist and computer music genius George Lewis has been a major name in new music since the mid '70s, having worked with just about everyone you can imagine, but his recorded output has been all too rare. This first release for Tzadik highlights the wide variety of his compositional approaches, with music for creative music orc…
Feeds You!
Another eclectic rock/pop band out of the infamous Kansai scene that produced the Boredoms, Omoide Hatoba and more. This exciting young three piece unit based in Kyoto presents their debut recording after years of playing in just about every small club from Tokyo to Fukuoka. Visceral power pieces offset with charming female vocals, pointillism and dub effects. Striking originality and a childlike curiosity point this band towards a new Kyoto rock sound.