Jazz /
Berlin Baritone
*2024 stock* "Nature rejoices in simplicity. And nature is no fool, as Isaac Newton knew. A tree. A fruit. A touch. A look. A flavour that awakens memories. A sound that transports us to a foreign land and back to ourselves. Like that of Kurt Rosenwinkel and his baritone guitar on these eight, with one exception, completely improvised solo pieces. This music is much more than the skilful ordering of notes. It is intoxication and clarity, calm and movement. And because there is only one musician …
Mnhrs
This is the memorable 10th live document of the free improvised music sessions co-organized by doubtmusic and Fulldesingn Records at Knuttel House in Iriya, recorded on multi-tracks on 5 May 2023. “mn” of Mikawa and Numata and “HRS” of Nishimura and Fujikake got united miraculously for this very special occasion, so the title was settled as “MNHRS”.Highly recommended to listen as loud as possible. If that is not easily achieved, then with headphones, but high in volume. We are pretty confident t…
Double Diamond
The first release on Sormi Editions is an improvised acoustic album by Turku-based guitarist Topias Tiheäsalo. Full of delicate sounds, low-volume playing and beautiful overtones the CD features cover paintings and design by Pauliina Mäkelä.
Roscoe Village (The Music Of Roscoe Mitchell)
Tuned metal percussion figures prominently in the sound universe of Roscoe Mitchell. Many of Mitchell's early compositions for the Art Ensemble of Chicago feature xylophone and tuned bells, and his immersive set-up known as The Cage arranges an array of percussed instruments in a circle around him, including all sorts of metallophones and gongs. On Roscoe Village, Chicago-based improvisor Jason Adasiewicz has transcribed and arranged a selection of Mitchell-penned pieces, performing them all on …
Sacred Gong Dive
*2023 stock* "Gongs have been part of my life since 1970, when as Jazz Swiss School student in Bern (Switzerland), I had the lucky opportunity to visit the Paiste, Cymbal and Gongs factory. I was immediately fascinated by the sonic world of the gong and related metal percussion and I started dreaming a future that could possibly include those marvelous instruments. Few years later, while in New York on my first US trip, I found few Albums of Balinese Music in a small record store in the Greenwic…
Live at Kerrytown House
*2023 stock* "Though modern, “avant-garde” jazz is an ensemble music often based on collective improvisation, solo performance is its own extraordinarily fruitful sub-area of investigation for the creative improviser. Without a reactive, interpretive partner (or several), the solo recital blurs the lines between composition and improvisation as the performer enters a world of unfettered development. Greene has been performing and recording solo since the 1970s, and these settings have yielded so…
Live With Repertoire
*2023 stock* "Riley’s music has often been called reserved and constructivist, maybe because of his classical avant-garde background. However, his approach is by no means unemotional, there is a very beautiful lyricism in his style. On “Live with Repertoire” you can see this if you compare his version of “Round Midnight” with the one by Miles Davis, whose interpretation of the classic Monk tune sounds like a soundtrack to a French film noir in which the protagonist strolls through a deserted Par…
Thinking Of Khlebnikov
*2023 stock* "Russian-born percussionist Vladimir Tarasov is sort of the “old man” of jazz in Lithuania – he’s called Vilnius home since 1968, and achieved international renown as an improviser with the Ganelin Trio (1971-1986). In addition to work as a sound installation artist and solo percussionist, he has also worked with American composers like Anthony Braxton and drummer Andrew Cyrille. Thinking of Khlebnikov, a dedication to Russian Futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov, is Tarasov’s first dis…
Skeletons
*200 copies limited edition* Second release on Sormi Editions is a skeletal ballad record by Topias Tiheäsalo. Played on an electric guitar through an old amp - an album dedicated to fragile resonances and tactile nuances revealing the skeletons of these compositions by Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington and John Fahey. The LP comes with a hand-made cover and a beautiful risograph print designed by Pauliina Mäkelä.
The Very Fabric
*300 coipes limited edition* "The Brønshøj Vandtårn is a concrete water tower, built almost a hundred years ago in the suburbs of Copenhagen. It's 20m wide and 34m high - smaller than some similar shapes I've played in, but with a large, lingering reverberation. Some sounds seem to float away as if through liquid, others acquire a shifting haze, and some just prefer to sit around. Thomas Buhl-Wiggers, of the Cejero festival and label, kindly invited me to play there in the summer of 2022 and arr…
Una ofrenda a la ausencia
“Una ofrenda a la ausencia” (an offering to absence) explores in depth the rawness, harshness and roughness of sound embracing the intense and unfiltered expressions that emerges from absence.
Mysteries:Untitled
*2023 stock* 'The chief attraction of this album is an almost 50 minute, previously unreleased solo performance by Taylor given at New York University in November 1976 as part of the Bösendorfer Festival, a benefit series for the Kitchen performance centre. His previous solo recital that year had been in August at Moosham Castle in the Lungau region of Salzburg during an open-air festival, subsequently released as Air Above Mountains (Buildings Within) (Enja, 1977). Taylor had come across a Böse…
Indent
*2023 stock* In 1973, Indent marked a new direction for one of the founders and masters of what was to be called »free jazz«; yet it turned out to have defined styles and highly sophisticated rules of its own. It was radically new and initially difficult to tune into for some. Cecil Taylor was composing in fractions of seconds. He was free to decide what to compose but in the end intelligent structures can be perceived with a multitude of »cells« being introduced, developed and layered one upon …
Poschiavo
*2023 stock* In the life of every artist comes the time when toward the end of his existence, he will create a monument to his ever-lasting artistic efforts. It is the Swan-Song for which he wishes to remain being known; for centuries, this has crossed the borderlines between cultures and arts. Poschiavo was recorded when Cecil Taylor was sixty-nine years old, very much at the height of his musical and poetic powers. Recorded in Europe on a fine Bösendorfer grand piano in perfect digital clarity…
The Piano
As with Directstep (recorded one week previously), this album was recorded, and originally only released, in Japan. It was one of Hancock's most successful albums in Japan, perhaps because it was entirely solo piano. Hancock tackles jazz standards such as "My Funny Valentine", "On Green Dolphin Street" and "Some Day My Prince Will Come" while also performing four original compositions.
Strumento di Etimo Incerto
The singular Norwegian percussionist Ingar Zach, a long-time member of paradigm-shifting experimental ensembles like Huntsville and Dans les arbes, delivers his eighth solo recording, and his first on the superb Belgian imprint Aspen Edities. The percussionist digs even deeper into his sonic research, transforming a massive bass drum used in orchestral music, as a resonant surface for otherworldly, texture-rich excursions that mix-and-match rhythm and color in ever-shifting combinations.
Variations (LP)
* 250 copies, hand numbered * On Nils Vermeulen’s first solo album, the sound of the double bass is the main variable. Recorded at the empty Ghent Opera, where every note, attack and vibration comes through, including the creaking of the wooden floor. There is no hiding in reverb, nor in easy playing. The strings Vermeulen uses on this recording (‘Tempera’ strings by Gerold Genssler), are inspired by traditional gut strings, and have lower tension to let the instrument resonate freely. The pie…
Goodbye Ground
Sakina Abdou has expressed herself in many contexts, in musical fields both broad and eclectic. With this solo album, she invites herself within, focus and anchors herself for the first time in her own language, where she summons the many influences which have nurtured her. Through «homemade» recording, naked, raw, without effects or tricks, we meet her on her own, at home. Grab a chair or settle on the floor next to her, on the edge of the bell, almost touching, and find yourself captured in a …
Opinions
Torbjörn Zetterberg’s new record, Opinions, is not a conventional “solo” outing. It doesn’t represent the bassist, composer, and bandleader stepping away from all that to prove his mettle as a virtuoso unaccompanied improvisor. Anyone familiar with Zetterberg’s small group recordings needs no confirmation of his prowess. And anyway, strutting his stuff is not his vibe. Certainly not the vibe of this record, where the bassist plays more than bass, a solo venture on which he is occasionally joined…
Signe Emmeluth
Its an honor for the AFJ-Series to introduce the self-titled debut album by Danish Oslo resident Signe Emmeluth. Recorded at Flerbruket, in the forest an hour outside of Oslo - Emmeluth alone in a room with her alto and tenor saxophones.
A fantastic session of sax solo ecstasies recorded by Magnus Hemnes Nergård. Much like Joe McPhee's Tenor and Peter Brötzmann's 14 Love Songs, this album share the same beautiful intimacy. It is close, sparse, poetic and raw at the same time. Minimalist and soul…