Jazz /
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…
Sounds Good
*2022 stock.* Italian piano player Giovanni di Domenico and Catalan drummer Oriol Roca, have been musical partners for fifteen years. They started playing in duo in 2010 to explore the sound possibilities of their instruments, focusing on silence, density and space in music, through improvised fragments and some original compositions. Their first studio album is now released on Belgian label Spocus Records.
Down the Hill
*2022 stock.* Since their meeting in the Hague in the Netherlands in 2002, Alexandra Grimal and Giovanni di Domenico have been playing together regularly. Since 2011 they have been offering several subtle and inspired tête-à-têtes: Ghibli, Chergui and Down the Hill, which was released on January 19th, 2020. Ghibli, around a repertoire composed by the Italian pianist, released on the Sans Bruit label in 2011, the music navigates on the mineral lines of Alexandra Grimal's saxophones that come to r…
Chergui
*2022 stock.* Alexandra Grimal goes in her own way, elegant but robust, through the territories of jazz and improvised music over recent years. It was only natural she would meet and regularly play in duet settings with Giovanni di Domenico, as versatile an adventurer as Alexandra is, both in his musical choices and collaborations. Three years after their first recording together (2011's Ghibli on the Sans Bruit label), Chergui was recorded over two nights at the Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris, Fran…
Ghibli
"Alexandra Grimal goes in her own way, elegant but robust, through the territories of jazz and improvised music over recent years. It was only natural she would meet Giovanni di Domenico over the Alps, who has woven her a series of compositions where they locate/find the ironic meander of their dialogues. A sophisticated "chamber" jazz music that yet seems to flow so naturally... One forgets the music writing to only catch the emotion of the moment."Alexandra Grimal: soprano saxophoneGiovanni di…
Finding Ourselves In All Things
**CD version** Finding Ourselves In All Things features two lengthy tracks, standing in stark contrast to each other: Melting With Butterflies is brimming with life: chaotic, hysterical and joyous - celebrating the viewpoint of all small things and their seemingly frantic nature. The Way Mountains Make Love is equally intense, but with a quite different energy – a slow moving organic unity vibrating with the frequencies of everything big and ancient.Both tracks explore and elaborate on its respe…
Troposgrafien
**CD version** Kasper Skullerud Værnes and Andreas Wildhagen has played together for ten years as of 2018. They formed a duo shortly after meeting, and quickly realized that the power and subtleness of the sax and drums duo format was worth further explorations. Through the years and in various ensembles and projects such as KNYST! (trio with bassist and Nakama founder Christian Meaas Svendsen,) and Paal Nilssen-Love Large Unit, the duo has grown and developed a highly flexible and telepathic in…
Gibberish, Balderdash and Drivel
**CD version** Gibberish, Balderdash and Drivel consists of three nonsensical musical conversations between Malaysian nylon guitar player Goh Lee Kwang and Norwegian bass player Christian Meeas Svendsen. The album was recorded in an independent art gallery close to Kuala Lumpur with a handheld device. It tells us the story of the first encounter between two different mindsets, nationalities and generations trying - and totally failing at - making any sensible dialogue with their respective music…
Worst Generation
"Worst Generation" is Nakama’s first fully improvised album, and was recorded as part of a live concert in studio during their first European tour. The LP version is in lenticular – the motif changes when viewed from a different angle. The CD is in English on one side and Japanese on the other with the imprint in beautiful gloss. One thing is always something different and at the same time two sides of the same coin...
Neptun
**CD version** Neptune, a planet invisible to the naked eye, it was originally discovered through mathematical deduction after scientists noticed unexpected changes in the course of Uranus. It was named after the Roman god of the sea. In addition to being ruler of the liquid element, he was said to have tremendous power over our subconsciousness and emotions, which we ourselves still today have little understanding of. The title represents the unknown, ranging from the depths of the human mind …
3 Pianos
**CD version** 3 Pianos is an album made by a unique piano ensemble consisting of three musicians with different backgrounds and experience. The curiosity for the piano and its countless possibilities was the outset whereas the wish to bend the common boundaries for piano music was the background for this project. The ensemble makes music with clear connections to the music and the ideas of the twentieth century. The musicians develop the material in their own way by focusing on elements like tu…
No Right No Left
**CD version** No Right No Left is the first solo album of drummer Andreas Wildhagen. Recorded in Wildhagen's practice room in late July 2016, it explores different expressions and levels of energy. The music is improvised, still certain ideas can be traced throughout the record. In order to eliminate right and left, one has to imagine a view which is not rooted in a subject or object. If we lack a reference point, right and left disappears. Right and left, good and bad permeate society, but mus…
Kyūbi
**CD version** This album is a free exploration of sound within the boundaries of two violins and the musicians playing them. Close interplay and together-ness permeates the 36 minutes of eclectic but cohesive music, ranging in expression from reductionist and sparse textures, to filmscore-like tonal landscapes with clear dramatic outlines. The record reflects both the duo's dionysic and apollinian sides, and the balance between the two creates something universal which the listener can relate …
Landet Er Gitt Oss
**CD version** Improvisation, truth, joy, jazz and doubt. These are but a few of the elements that frequently emerge in the universe of Filosofer, and on their debut Landet Er Gitt Oss. Using the Norwegian version of a term used for people who spend most of their time pondering over life's big mysteries, one is lead to believe that their music is rooted in complex concepts and theoretic academia. So it is not. Filosofer focuses more on guts and feel rather than analyzing and thinking. Their basi…
Good Days
On May 13, 2000 the Chicago Underground Quartet played one of the most searing and transcendent sets of music I’ve ever witnessed, as part of the Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music. Cornetist Rob Mazurek, guitarist Jeff Parker, drummer Chad Taylor, and bassist Noel Kupersmith performed with a fiery singularity of purpose, ripping through its set like a bulldozer, albeit a machine marked by nuance and soulfulness. The following year the same line-up—which had previously made two alb…
June Holiday
**400 copies** "A sublime trio set from drummer Charles Rumback – a record that has us really appreciating the special touch the leader can bring to a date, as this album may also be one of the best that we've heard from pianist Jim Baker in years! Baker has this great way of sounding soulful and lyrical, yet also moving towards the freer side of his spectrum too – working with the subtle drums of Rumback and the careful bass of John Tate, all with energy that almost takes us back to the groundb…
Light On the Wall
**2009 release** This double vinyl is the most welcome album of the series, with Ken Vandermark playing duets with Tim Daisy on drums on the first disk. The performance was recorded exactly two years ago in Poznań, Poland. The album starts with "Autostrada", slowly picking up speed with Vandermark on clarinet, then Daisy pushes up a kind of tribal rhythm, bringing the clarinet to full intensity, then slowing down for a nice melodious moment. "The Empty Chair" is the ideal Vandermark + percussion…
14 Love Poems
A monument of post-free solo reeds playing and a stunning album in Peter Brötzmann's discography
Das Moabiter Duo - Recovered
In February 2020, Sven-Åke Johansson and Thomas Kapielski released the vinyl LP Recovered under their project name Das Moabiter Duo at Fantôme Verlag. It was published on the occasion of a joint exhibition by Johansson and Kapielski at the Laura Mars Gallery, Berlin.Recovered, mixed and mastered by Frieder Butzmann, features a previously unreleased concert recording from 1983. Joint performances by Kapielski and Johansson took place in clubs like the Korrekt (Alt-Moabit, Berlin) or ‒ as part o…
Phantom Limb
Massive industrial noise and free jazz blasts from the past,16-17 returning with new material after 25 years. Founded 1983 in Basel by saxophonist Alex Buess and former drummer Knut Remond, they have been shaping the forefront of a new sound area. Playing an abrasive distorted mix of dub, hardcore and free jazz that lead to a meeting of likeminded heavy heads that temporally took part in the band e.g. Kevin Martin (The Bug, Techno Animal) or G.C. Green (Godflesh). After marking their presence an…