Jazz /
Today And All The Tomorrows
"Today and all the tomorrows is one of those releases that sounds like cinema for the ears, despite the fact that the ‘song’ order might seem random and that it might be hard to find a general arc. Verhoeven firmly stands at the center of this music, flanked by two guitarists that get caught up in six three-way conversations. There is no agreed method or set of expectations and fixed ideas, but listen carefully, and you will notice how each piece has its own characteristics and turns the combina…
Three Blokes in Ameno
*In process of stocking* The trio Kalma Zolli Sinigaglia is coming out from the experiences of the duo “Scosse Elettriche” (Zolli-Sinigaglia) playing with other musicians like Trio Cavalazzi and Ariel Kalma. Riccardo Sinigaglia is a well-known Italian composer, electronic musician and improviser; he played keyboards and flute in groups like Futuro Antico, Correnti Magnetiche, Doubling Riders, and collaborated with many musicians in Italy and abroad. Davide Zolli has been the drummer of Italian n…
Heisse Scheisse
'At its best moments – throughout most of the album in fact – Heisse Scheisse is joyous chaos. The quintet seems to relish playing two or three different overlapping pieces of music. Case in point, Lapsarian begins with a labyrinthine riff-like structure that rapidly deteriorates into Eisenberg and Neuburg heading in their own directions. After a relatively calm and short interlude, Pitsiokos and Eisenberg both solo at the same time, but in an orthogonal fashion, before the overall structure is …
Obstacle Illusion
'Obstacle Illusion is born out of my love for a wide array of musics that I've experienced and studied over the years. The album includes edited live concert recordings from my 3-month European tour at the end of 2021 (Centro d'Arte in Padova, AngelicA Festival in Bologna and the Rassegna di Nuova Musica in Macerata). The first and fourth tracks are solo acoustic piano. The second and third tracks are solely with the Korg Wavestate: all live, no overdubs. This music is the result of a collaborat…
Natural Sources
"Some albums show you right away what kind of spirit backs them. Ronald Snijders solo debut from 1977, Natural Sources, is one of these. It begins with a free improvised, sometimes scatting flute and while the flute goes more and more crazy some scat vocals join in to make this first track a kinda strange affair. Jazz, free and spirited, seems the way but Ronald Snijders, son of Surinamese composer Eddy Snijders, outwits us in all our tiny minded expectations with the next song already. An everg…
Some Of Them Were Never Unprepared
*In process of stocking* 'As a musician, I've been curious for many years of how collective musical practices can provide a sense of weightlessness, as well as how a focused interplay can blur the lines between musicians and sound sources and create reconfigurations of the relations between the two. I have also tried to explore these observations in depth in some of my composed music: during 2015-2017 I experimented with ways to surprise and destabilise myself in the solo format within the compo…
Anthropods
Anthropods is the new band from American drummer and composer, Mark Holub. Holub, known mainly as bandleader of the acclaimed and Mercury Prize nominated Led Bib has with ‘Anthropods’ created his first project as a leader since starting Led Bib in 2003. While some of Holub’s trademark Led Bib style is evident here, the album is full of contrasts, from pastoral beauty to dense free improvisation to heavy grooves, showcasing sides of Holub’s work well beyond his work with Led Bib.
Holub has been b…
Kiedy Wilki Zawyja?
"This giddy avant pop affair is rather more avant than pop, with a large backing band of musicians steeped in the stylings of early 1970s psychedelia, mutant prog, free jazz saxophone solos, slinky blues (particularly on “Red White And Blue”) and moody spy soundtracks in the vein of John Barry’s score for 1965’s The Ipcress File. “Last Exit To Lublin” has a spoken word interlude in which the Cold War language of such films is remapped for the era of Brexit: “Papers, please/How long have you been…
Provenance
Martin Archer and John Jasnoch have a musical relationship which goes all the way back to the early 1980s when they were both a part of jazz-punk pell mellers Bass Tone Trap. Over the subsequent years they have played and recorded together occasionally, previously as ASK, and now as this no frills improvised music duo which allows both musicians to utilise the full range of their respective instrumentation. This new work was recorded in the same place at the same time, one day in July 2021. The …
Astragaloi
This trio didn’t know how lucky they had it. They were certainly happy to perform again when this concert was recorded at the ArtActs Festival in St Johan Austria in early March 2020. Although their first outing was back in 2013 in Harnik’s hometown of Graz - a live concert broadcast through the Austrian National Radio/ORF, the band has had a sporadic performance history. So the opportunity to reunite for this festival performance was already special. Little did they know what lay ahead though, …
Kudu
Anteloper is the electric brain child of Jaimie Branch (fly or die, high life) and Jason Nazary (little women, helado negro, bear in heaven). Branch and Nazary have been playing together as trumpeter and drummer for years, since meeting at the New England Conservatory of Music in 2002, but in this duo both musicians include synthesizers to push further into the spectral space ship ether. With deep rhythmic passages, telepathic improvisations and effortless melodic negotiations, Anteloper pushes …
Printemps 2021
"The curious fact about this 52-minute improvisation by Rene Lussier (guitar and daxophone), Érick d'Orion (computer and electronics), Robbie Kuster (drums), and Martin Tetreault (turntables and electronics) is that, as far as we know, it was just the second indoor concert held in Canada after the pandemic started in March 2020, the second concert of the 2021 edition of the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville held in May of this year. As such, it was the first time that t…
Xylophonen Virtuosen
A collection of improvised duets with guitarist Jim O’Rourke and reedist Mats Gustafsson. All of the material has been newly remastered for release on 2xLP & digital and marks the first ever vinyl pressing with previously unreleased tracks. Tracks A1, B3(excerpt), C1, C2 and D3(excerpt) were in parts or in its complete form released on Incus CD38 (1999) with a different mix and master. All other tracks are unreleased.
Crossed & Recrossed
Crossed & Recrossed presents two works composed by Peter Knight & inspired by mappings of imagined places by iconic Australian novelist, Gerald Murnane & Italian master, Italo Calvino. Simultaneously celebrating & deconstructing the tropes of minimalism, Crossed & Recrossed creates a series of musical mirages that form on an endless sonic horizon, reflecting & reimagining the wide open spaces described in Murnane’s iconic novel, The Plains & the labyrinthine streets of Calvino’s Invisible Cities…
Live at OZO Land
After a long hiatus due to obvious reasons, Goncalo Almeida & Dirk Serries played an exclusive duo performance at Jazzblazzt in The Netherlands. Open air at the lovely Ozo Land location. Recorded live on June 5, 2021.
The Other Lies
“”The Other Lies is a collection of six improvised duets performed by Tom Jackson on clarinet Colin Webster on alto and baritone saxophones. Tom Jackson is very accomplished in the fields of contemporary classical music and free improvisation. He also holds a Ph.D from Canterbury Christ Church University. Colin Webster is a musician whose works I’ve reviewed here before. When one of his releases comes up on my Bandcamp feed I always take notice. He’s a prolific and under appreciated figure in th…
Melancholia
“‘Melancholia’ is, perhaps, a somewhat misleading title for the duet of John Edward (double bass) and label boss Dirk Serries (acoustic guitar). One might expect some sad music, a soft thud on the bass, a few strums on the acoustic guitar, but it is clear that these men deal with a different kind of melancholia right from the start. In the two pieces (forty-four minutes), I think there is a mutual agreement between the two to work along dynamic lines. They cut out the middle ground, it seems. Th…
One In The Eye
“From May this year, One In The Eye is a double CD bringing together Alan Wilkinson and Dirk Serries for selection jagged, moody, to-playful improv. The set features one disc taking in eight tracks, and a second disc features two longer work-out.
The first disc opens with the nearing six minutes of “Upshot”- here we find Serries jagging ‘n’ jerking strums weaved with Wilkinson energetic and at points quite seared sax work- this works as a nicely urgent and shifting opener for the release, throwi…
Pieces Of Apparatus
“Pieces Of Apparatus severs up five examples of extremely sparse and often spaced-out improv for guitar- with all the tracks unfolding in both a jaggedly wondering, dartingly inventive, and largely rewarding manner. Here on the New Wave Of Jazz label is CD release, presented in the labels house style packaging of a white and grey box gatefold, that features a worthy write-up about both Gérard work in general and the pieces offered up here.
Pierre Gérard is based in Liège, Belgium- and has been …
Ballads From The Wrecked Ship
Ballads From The Wrecked Ship is a decidedly varied and rather wonderful improv release, which sits somewhere between sonic creativity and atmospheric moodiness. The seven-track album slides in at a concise and focused forty minutes, and I must say it certainly stand as one of more distinctive/ original improv release I have heard in some time. The album appears on the always worthy/ interesting New Wave Of Jazz- coming in the labels house style mini grey gatefold packaging, which as always fea…