Jazz /
Jacana
LP version. The best improvisers are the ones that seem to invent and uninvent their instruments right in front of your eyes and ears. Swedish pianist Sten Sandell and Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love are two musical champions with a long experience of doing exactly that. Jacana, the latest in Rune Grammofon's occasional series of unusual duo combinations, features the pair's sparkly improvised set captured at the 2013 Kongsberg Jazz Festival in southern Norway. Sten and Paal have been …
Exit!
Gatefold double LP version. It can't be easy gathering 28 of Northern Europe's finest jazz and improvising musicians in one place at the same time, which is why Sweden's Fire! Orchestra has been one of the continent's best-kept secrets so far. After playing rare shows a handful of times a year, this incredible mass ensemble is getting ready to unleash its full power with Enter, its first studio recording. This isn't jazz: this is Nordic dynamite. Fire! originated as the trio of Swedish …
Without Noticing
LP version. Rune Grammofon presents (without noticing), the fifth album from Swedish trio Fire!, comprised of Mats Gustafsson (The Thing), Johan Berthling (Tape) and drummer Andreas Werliin (Wildbirds & Peacedrums). This album follows collaborations with Jim O'Rourke, Oren Ambarchi and the gargantuan 30 piece Fire! Orchestra band. Fire!'s latest burnt offering features the trio alone with themselves, lighting up a sonic blaze which smolders, then catches alight under their careful attention. …
You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago
LP version. This is the debut full-length release from excellent Swedish jazz trio, Fire! -- something of a supergroup with members from already well-known quarters. Sax player, improviser and composer Mats Gustafsson is probably best-known from power-jazz trio The Thing, but he has also played more than 1,500 concerts and participated on around 150 records with musicians such as Peter Brötzmann, Sonic Youth, Merzbow, Jim O'Rourke, Barry Guy, Otomo Yoshihide, Ken Vandermark, Hamid Drake, Derek B…
Live at Vilnius Jazz Festival
A demanding live duo performance from New York drummer William Hooker and Lithunian saxophonist Liudas Mockunas, performing at the 2013 Vilnius Jazz Festival. The playing is hard-edged, rugged and free playing, keeping a strong momentum from Hooker's unabating drive, maintaining a solid pulse without seeming to repeat himself. Mockunas has a thick confident approach to his playing, varying melodic riffs with trance-like playing. An album of edge-of the-seat and persuasive playing."Liudas Mockuna…
Perilous Architecture
In the Dan Blacksberg Trio, the innovative and genre-defying trombonist brings an expansive and creative new vision to the cutting-edge jazz traditions of pioneers like Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, and Albert Ayler. The trio is celebrating the release of Perilous Architecture, their second album for Lithuanian-based NoBusiness Records. Blacksberg has penned a set of music that pushes at the technical and timbral limits of his instrument, opening up into far-reaching sounds worlds while maintaini…
Plaything
This open-minded trio recorded Plaything in October of 2012 at Studio Juillaguet, a recording and dance space located in a rural part of southwest France that is run by Kent Carter and his wife, a professional choreographer. Bassist Kent Carter produced the album, along with the NoBusiness label. Gianni Lenoci and Bill Elgart first met in Evil Rabbit's 2010 Amsterdam music festival. Subsequently Lenoci invited Carter to Monopoli, Italy to do a workshop with his orchestra, which Carter …
Ascent Of The Nether Creatures
Previously unreleased material from the quartet of trumpeter Earl Cross, saxophonist Idris Ackamoor, bassist Rashied Al Akbar, and drummer Muhammad Ali, performing live in The Netherlands in 1980, for five smoking examples of free jazz. The recordings are on the rough side, but the playing is spectacular, with impressive soloing from all 4 players. Clearly the room was transfixed by their playing, all all 4 respond with concentrative solos and great exuberance. The tune's heads sometim…
The Periphery Of The Periphery
About a week after September 11, 2001 I flew into New York City to be a grant panelist for the Rockefeller Foundation's arts program. Flying into New York the aftermath of the destruction of the Twin Towers could still be seen as an eerie cloud and haze that embraced the site of the attacks. Walking through the streets there were flyers posted everywhere that detailed the names and descriptions of the missing and dead. I sat in a room for the arts panel that gave me a birds eye view of the…
Crystal Spears
Recorder at Variety Studios, NYC, 1973 - ltd/numbered 1/75 with paste-on cover (notes on back) and regular white inner sleeve "it was originally to be released on Impulse but that never happened, so this is the 1st time on vinyl. crystal wax and paste-on cover with Ra holding a kind of crystal spearse!"
Northwood box vol.II
Sensational!!! 4LP box set with printed inner sleeves, black vinyls/black labels, ltd ed 75 copies only numbered. "second and last volume; including their earliest available recordings from 1985 (not available anywhere else)!" (ep) Fog and Fire #51: rec. January 8, 1994 at Northwoods Studios, Michigan, originally released by Arc on CD; Branches #52: rec. 2000, originally released by Entropy on CD; Spinning #53: rec. June 7th & 8th, 1996 at Northwoods Studios, Michigan, originally released …
On leaves of grass
Following up on the success of 2013’s “Dreamachines”, the third release by the brilliant quartet Nova Express is inspired by and dedicated to American poetic genius and father of free verse Walt Whitman. Combining the hypnotic swirls of minimalism, the free intensity of improvisation and a soaring lyricism, “On Leaves of Grass” is an exhilarating addition to Zorn’s growing collection of mystical transcendental works. An emotional and virtuosic outing from this Downtown supergroup performing musi…
Cycles (1976-80)
Solo saxophone performances of three of Lacy's rarest cycles. The eight-part SHOTS (Moms / Pops / The Kiss / Tots / The Ladder / Fruits / Coots / The Wire) comes mostly from a 1977 Roman concert, with a couple of missing pieces taken from other contemporaneous performances. The only other complete (duo) release of this material was on a long deleted (Musica) LP. The rest of this 2-CD set comes from a 1980 solo recording session and concert in the lively acoustics of an old church in Porrentruy i…
Oliv & Familie
The 1969 Oliv session was the third Spontaneous Music Ensemble LP to be issued, following on from Challenge (1966) and Karyobin (1968), currently awaiting reissue. Familie appears to be the earliest recorded example of a large Sme group. This music is very influenced by slow-moving Gagaku (Japanese court music), especially the semi-composed first half. The second half is largely a free improvisation with a brief return to the written material at the end. An alternative take was recorded, presuma…
Avignon and after - Volume 1
The 1972 Avignon concerts were Steve Lacy’s very first solo concerts, although he did make an excellent overdubbed solo record for Saravah the year before. (For ‘solo’ read ‘alone’ or ‘unaccompanied’ rather than the usual music business meaning of ‘very accompanied’.) Thanks to an introduction by John Stevens, I first met Lacy when he visited London in 1973. He brought with him some of the Avignon tapes in order to try and interest a record producer to issue this music. However, record producers…
The Sun
It is a disturbing fact that most of the major disputes throughout history have been settled by physical fighting involving killing. Have we really risen much above the rest of the animal world? On the contrary, many animals do not kill members of their own species even though they may fight. It used to be that battles were fought in a remote location between two armies that comprised a small percentage of the population. But let us not forget that military fighters, whether voluntary, conscript…
School days
“In 1962 I went to New York for the first time. My father had worked for Boac for so long that the flights were free - I had only to pay 7/6 (=37½p) airport tax. I stayed in NY for two weeks, only leaving Manhattan to take the standard tourist boat trip around the island. A lady on the plane had taken an interest in my plans, and when I told her that I didn't think there would be time to experience more than what Manhattan had to offer, she implored me, 'Please don't judge America by what you se…
Hamidbar Medaber
A dynamic and powerful band out of Canada, Zebrina brings Jewish music into the 21st century with their brilliant second CD. Featuring Ben Goldberg on clarinet, “Hamidbar Medaber” is one of the most exciting and successful blending of modern jazz with the Jewish tradition. Referencing Masada and late Miles, the music contains mysterious moods, fiery solos, and lyrical melodies that will keep you coming back for more. One of the most exciting young bands working in Radical Jewish Culture, Zebrina…
Valentine's Day
An exciting new world of instrumental rock featuring three generations of Downtown superstars—Marc Ribot (Ceramic Dog, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello), Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, Melvins, Fantômas) and Tyshawn Sorey (Steve Coleman, Anthony Braxton, Vijay Iyer). Written in 2010, these 12 instrumental miniatures combine atonal lyricism with rock intensity—Schoenberg meets Beefheart’s Magic Band. Originally released as duos in 2011 on the now legendary Enigmata CD (one of the most vexing CDs in Zorn’s cat…
The testament of Solomon
For their fourth release, Zorn’s most intimate and spiritual 21st century ensemble returns with a melodic and open book of tunes reminiscent of the Book of Angels. Drawing inspiration from the Biblical Song of Solomon and originally intended as a companion piece to Zorn’s vocal masterpiece Shir Hashirim, the music is regal, sensual and romantic—a magical blend of classical, jazz and folk music. There has never been a group like the Gnostic Trio, and The Testament of Solomon is a unique CD in the…