Jazz /
Zuppa di Pazienza
"Insalata Statica" (Silent Water, 2017), Giovanni Di Domenico's first solo album, allowed the Italian pianist based in Brussels to free himself from his abundant creativity by proposing six dense movements. It took him five years to record and produce this first record. With "Zuppa di pazienza", recorded and produced in five months, Di Domenico worked much faster, but the result is that these compositions are more thorough. Reduced to two, the movements are more refined, taking the time to devel…
The Sweetness Of The Water
Spring Heel Jack brings esteemed trumpeter and vanguard composer Wadada Leo Smith to the mix, along with reedsman and longtime Spring Heel collaborator Evan Parker, fellow Brit John Edwards on bass, and drummer Mark Sanders. The Sweetness of the Water, from 2003, is a strong offering from John Coxon and Ashley Wales (the masterminds behind Spring Heel Jack), with a more intimate, live feel than the group’s previous electro-heavy efforts. Parker returns with his bellowing, screaming sax juxtapose…
To The Animal Kingdom
Three young musicians team up to form this exciting trio. Personnel: Mette Rasmussen - alto saxophone; Tashi Dorji - guitar; Tyler Damon - drums.
II
London based saxophonist Colin Webster is quickly establishing himself on the European avant-garde scene. Working with a broad range of collaborators, Webster is known for working from extreme sonic palettes -- from minimal to maximal, constantly pushing boundaries. Webster first worked with Dirk Serries on the landmark Endless Voids performance led by Dead Neanderthals at the 2014 Incubate Festival. Since this initial meeting, the two have worked on different collaborations both live and i…
Trebuchet
LP version. The new album combines again the trademarks of Made To Break: the soulful and grooving play of Ken Vandermark (one of the key musicians/composers in the current free jazz scene) on reeds with the filigran electronic distortions and loops of Christof Kurzmann, with a solid rhythm layer by the young Dutch bassist lloopp Jasper Stadhouders and drummer Tim Daisy. An unusual "jazz" record, fascinating so much the more. Personnel: Ken Vandermark - reeds; Christof Kurzmann - electronics; ll…
Thinking out loud
Boneshaker are Mars Williams (reeds, toy instruments), Paal Nilssen-Love (drums & percussion) and Kent Kessler (bass), three prolific powerhouse musicians, carrying among them a Grammy nomination and decades of experience with the top ensembles in the world. Thinking Out Loud is their third album. Personnel: Mars Williams - reeds; Paal Nilssen-Love - drums; Kent Kessler - bass.
The Paul Bley Synthesizer Show
LP version. Bamboo present the first ever reissue of Paul Bley's The Paul Bley Synthesizer Show, originally released in 1971. This stunning album was recorded over three sessions in New York City on December 9th, 1970, January 21st, 1971, and March 9th, 1971. The Paul Bley Synthesizer Show produces new songs and tough translations of previous works from Mr. Joy while joining the likes of other seminal works in 1972's Dual Unity (BAM 7018CD/LP), 1971's Improvisie (BAM 7019CD/LP), and Bley-Pea…
Al Dar Al Hamra
Very fine tuned, almost Mediterranean, Middle Eastern mainly string orchestra. A supergroup with members of Dwarfs Of East Agouza, Konstrukt, "A" Trio, Johnny Kafta Anti-Vegetarian Orchestra, etc. Umut Çağlar, Sam Shalabi, Sharif Sehnaoui, Mazen Kerbaj, Toni Elieh, Maurice Louca, and Michael Zerang unleash a blend of fiery and free psychedelic forms and un-jazz, with various shades and traces of shaabi, tarab, sufi, and post everything -- timeless, rock-free, kraut-jazz. Recorded during a wet,…
Walthamstow Moon ('61 Revisited)
On November 17th 1961, John Coltrane played at the Granada Theatre in Walthamstow. On November 23rd, 55 years later, free jazz legend Evan Parker made this six track recording in the same space with John Russell and John Edwards. This recording has personal resonances for Evan: he attended Coltrane's performance 55 years ago at the Granada. Evan Parker: "John Russell, John Edwards and I are going to record in that same cinema. It has had the usual chequered life of classic old cinemas of the…
Nuclear Family
2016 release. Multi-instrumental master Joe McPheeand his longtime colleague, French saxophonist and clarinetist André Jaume, joined forces for this studio recording in 1979 that was prepared but never released. It is primarily structured around pairs of tunes by Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, and Duke Ellington (or Billy Strayhorn), adding Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" for good measure. The results are stunningly intimate and show the twosome's capacity for creative interplay at a fairly e…
For Seun Matta
Featuring some of the most innovative players from Beirut, Cairo and Istanbul, Karkhana met for the first time in Beirut in 2014, bringing together influences from the three major experimental music scenes of the region and beyond. Through their live shows, the band’s seven multi-instrumentalists build a transcendental atmosphere developing what could possibly be called Free Middle Eastern music. Shades and traces of shaabi, tarab, sufi and much more are heard in the distinct blend of free jazz …
Cut Air
Jim Denley has been playing flute since 1969 - after 50 years of a curious love/hate relationship with the instrument this is his first solo flute-only recording. He aims to situate this music within a global outlook, with a pacific perspective. Being from a continent, Australia, where there is no flute tradition, he’s taken cues and elements from flute traditions that still have power and currency — the European flute with it’s purity, brilliance and dexterity, the earthy simplicity of bamboos …
Refraction
I first met Mark sometime in the early 90’s when we were both working in Chelmsford. He was running Soundworld Records above the musical instrument shop of the same name, I was over the other side of town in an insurance brokers. I’d played quite a bit of free improvisation at that point, mostly at the old LMC in a quartet called Make Shift together with Peter Urpeth, Stuart Wilding and long-time colleague and playing partner Geoff Collins. But had been away from it for a few years and wa…
Live Evil
A beautiful live representation of the energy of the Bitches Brew years – one that has Miles Davis and the group really letting loose with free-flowing, modally-inspired lines – cooking up an incredible blend of acoustic and electric sounds at once! There's a bit of funk here, but not much – and although guitar is sometimes used strongly, it's often not as noisy as in later live sides. Instead, the whole group gels together beautifully – an unlikely assortment of players that includes G…
Septet//2013
A new release on Hideaki Shimada (Agencement) label. It is new title after 13 years! Double CD of subtle-Tokyo Group improvisations by Tetuzi Akiyama (guitar), Junji Hirose (tenor sax), Hideo Ikegami (contrabass), Ko Ishikawa (sho), Kazushige Kinoshita (violin), Toshihiro Koike (trombone), Madoka Kouno (tape recorders), Maresuke (contraviola), Kenichi Matsumoto (tenor sax), Hideaki Shimada (violin)Manabu Suzuki (electronics), and Daysuke Takaoka (tuba).Recorded two concerts with septet of differ…
Live At Stone
The trio of Chris Corsano (drums), Okkyung Lee (cello) and Bill Nace (guitar) performing live at John Zorn's NYC improv club The Stone in 2014, three free improvising titans of the modern age in a very limited LP
The Founder Effect III
Excellent as the two quartet discs are, the trilogy saves its ace to the end, thus bringing it to a fitting climax. (Despite that, it is worth stressing that this trilogy should best be heard altogether, rather than one of its discs being cherry-picked.) The pairing of Pat Thomas's piano and Steve Noble's percussion—credited as "The Both"—is an ideal match. The two had recorded together before, on And (Rectangle, 1997) with Derek Bailey, but with Noble on turntables not drums—an encounter that g…
Falaise
Falaise is the first meeting between two major players of the Portuguese improvisation landscape. For those paying attention, neither should be a stranger by now. Besides being a powerhouse bassist with extraordinary technique, Hernani Faustino is one of the people behind the Clean Feed Label and integrates Nobuyasu Furuya's formations and Red Trio, who recently recorded albums with John Butcher and Nate Wooley.Pedro Sousa is among the most gifted improvisers of a younger generation of musicians…
Maru Sankaku Shikaku - Circle Triangle Square
Reissue of this Japanese early '70s performance group. The group's name is literally the icons for a "circle," "triangle" and "square," with "Maru Sankaku Shikaku" substituting as a translation for those images. Circle Triangle Square were a painted bunch of commune rockers and percussion tribe second to none, whose random bells, flute and remedial tea-tray flailings were still more like the Godz or Nihilist Spasm Band than the deep theta-space obliterations of Taj Mahal Travellers. Led by futur…
Exta
Finally restocked! "Butcher’s sax ranges from soft, whispery purrs to teeth-chatteringly spiteful blasts. Lehn’s analogue synth leaps in a moment from burbling tones to fiercely sizzling abstraction, and Tilbury slips from his familiar melodic interludes and fragmented arpeggios to crashing, seismic attacks on the inside of the piano. What sets this album head and shoulders above similar offerings is the understanding between the trio. It’s not just the way all three move together as one from su…