★We Insist!
Medea
Duo in the mirror that, in a continuous game of doubling and multiplication, ventures into another world, dense with unexpectedness and vital thrills. Sun Ra and post-rock, as well as Chicago experimentation and echoes of the world of Suzanne Ciani and minimal music, are the hints one can sense while listening to Medea, a journey to the edge and beyond. Star Splitter's new album comes five years after the debut album, a period in which the two artists experimented with the infinite possibilities…
Axes
Axes and layers, but also the axes, for striking and cutting. This work embraces the muscular energy of avant-jazz and delicate and dreamlike introspection. The musical references are to the America of Tim Berne and the Europe of Marc Ducret - the polyphony and rhythmic pulse of the urban environment. But the connections, even if not strictly musical, reach far; "Axis: Bold as Love" by Jimi Hendrix and "AlasNoAxis", Jim Black's debut album. More than one axis: axes.
Banquet of consequences
Berlin-based Banquet of Consequences is the new sextet led by double bassist Antonio Borghini. In addition to the valuable lesson of Charles Mingus, clear references to Dutch, Italian and South African jazz traditions are mixed in the group. The group's eponymous debut album oscillates between completely improvised works - a series of numbered "Dialogues" - and compositions that swing wildly between chaos and tenderness.
Empty smile
*100 copies limited edition* This solo could have been titled "16 Caprices for cello.” As in Paganini's Caprices, all the techniques and virtuosity of the classical tradition are used here, expanded and enriched by the sounds and research of the contemporary one. However, the approach to the instrument is physical and bodily characteristic of European free improvisation and jazz. But as in Tristan Honsinger, Leroy Jenkins or in Cage's Freeman Etudes for violin the focus is always The Music, whos…
Danze Degli Scorpioni
Dark moon music. If you are interested in the moon. Music concentrated in the process of discovering music, taking any risk. Extreme.How extreme is the exploration of one’s instruments, body, memories and stories. Vibrant, fast but at the same time calm music; slow.In search of the sound. Of movement that becomes sound. Of sound that becomes voice. That becomes movement.We dedicate this music to Coleman Hawkins, master improviser.
Orbita
The live performance recorded in the ancient Church of S. Giuliano, in Vercelli, encompasses some of the music conceived and written over the last few years, which Francesco Aroni Vigone spent in Valle d’Aosta. The recording location was chosen for its particular acoustics, perfect for a saxophone ‘solo’ and its aptitude for meditation. The performance took place during worship hours to have an unusual ‘audience’ in an unusual ‘liturgy’. The pieces are monodic songs that can be traced back mainl…
7 rocks
"This is the whole improvisation session we had on the evening of 25 April 2014, after a day spent recording some duets for Enrico’s project “Girotondo”. In the afternoon I had recorded with Mario Arcari “La prostituta e il soldato”, one of his compositions. The next day I was going to record my song “Il soldato e la cameriera” with Alberto Mandarini. So, during the evening break, after years of not playing together anymore, a little bit on my insistence, because Enrico seemed to want it too, we…
Prayer
I think it's important and proper to play Steve Lacy's music today and that we have to take the risk. Keeping his example alive means to me every time to question the results achieved. My relationship with his music is not occasional. Steve is present in three tracks of my first album "trochus". Later I played his music alone and in various groups. I would like to remember at least the Fish Horn Quartet, with Fabio Martini, Jean Jaques Avenel and John Betsch, the sextet 5or6 Bones with Sebi Tram…
Three Tsuru Origami
Three improvisers having fun and taking risks. The classic piano-less jazz trio reinvented by mixing melodies, dirty sounds, noises, extended techniques and references to tradition with a quasi-punk approach.
Inversi
An all-round musician, Cristiano Calcagnile defines his trio with these words: "Anchored low and hanging high, the trio vibrates in the belly like a single string". A trio with double bass and drums that takes into account the more modern sonorities of this classic formation but at the same time insinuates and welcomes sounds and attitudes that come from the freest experiences in the history of improvised music.
Giorgio Pacorig pianoGabriele Evangelista double bassCristiano Calcagnile drums, per…
Unfolding to Be You
*In process of stocking* 15 self-portraits by Sebi Tramontana. The shortest is about 30 seconds and the longest is almost nine minutes.In these fifteen pieces the trombone is explored in multiple directions. There are techniques dear to the world of European improvised music as well as echoes of Duke Ellington's trombone masters, Italian accounting as well as the pure sound of the air. Tramontana is a northern wind but Tramontana comes from the south, they have met and through a tube they take u…
Songs and Poems
*In process of stocking* Songs and Poems is a project born from the necessity to explore, in a chamber dimension, the possibilities of the sound of the word. The quartet joins Blend 3 - the trio of Andrea Grossi with Manuel Caliumi and Michele Bonifati - to the voice of Beatrice Arrigoni and finds its personal dimension within a sound world generated by the fusion of 20th century European traditions, starting from improvised music and European jazz, passing through contemporary music until arriv…
Expeditions
Tip! "Since 2014 I’ve had the luck, possibility (and guts?) to dedicate my life to exploring some parts of the world, driven both by curiosity and needs. The chosen way (the only one possible, for me) has been to undertake long tours. Jumping on this adventure, with no idea of what to expect, requires open brain, ears and good adaptability. What I have found since, is an endless count of good and bad experiences (which would not have probably happened as much, if I’d stayed at home). The people …
Kakuan Suite
LP version. "Every now and then I meet a bull who announces itself with its horns ('Le Corna'). But it doesn't scare me, it moves and dances, it runs away. Archery ('Tiro') is its favourite ('Rito') hobby, and my bull likes tea. It always eats round roti ('Chapati') together with its bull ('tori') friends who all have bristling hair like hedgehogs and succulent plants. My bull keeps different things in the vegetable gardens ('Orti') and in the wineskins ('Otri'). Then there is the tail ('la coda…
Tombé de la Voûte
“The meeting of three improvisers. The first time. Three couples, two of whom already know each other. The meeting is open. They start, scrutinize, smell and listen to each other. In between, skins and cymbals bind the strings and the air, speaking thickly. Listening. Commenting. Unite. The sound other. The other and the sound. The circle closes. The music opens.” Music by M. Doneda, A. Grossi & F. Monico. Liner notes by M. Doneda. On cover collage by Michel Doneda. Inside photo by Gianni Grossi…
From Here from There
He is la giusi, I am il piera. We'll explain why we have these nicknames another time. We started rehearsing in 1996. Three years and three recordings passed before we decided to release our first CD, "19 Calefactions" Takla Rec. Since then we have never stopped seeing each other and sharing experiences and paths. As a duo we have released three more works: "Due" Z.rec., "Big Margotta" Brokenresearch, and "Nel margine" Red Toucan. We have always liked trio collaborations and we have released the…
Rain, Ghosts, One Dog and Empty Woodland
Rain, ghosts, one dog and empty woodland is the first solo album by the musician Gianmaria Aprile, which comes after many productions in the world of a certain frontier rock, close to psychedelia, ambient, noise, jazz and its drifts. The first record where Gianmaria Aprile has no other musicians as travel companions, but only the sound of the two instruments he brought together: the guitar and the guqin. It’s a story of ghosts and long walks in the woods under the rain, in the company of a black…
Lubok
**100 copies** Blend 3 is an organism made up of three different but similar personalities. The group explores the diverse sonorities of a trio that, without a predetermined set, utilizes composition and improvisation as its only resources. By means of this combination of composition and improvisation, what is already written is proposed in an original and revisited way time after time. Concurrently, improvisation as an actual practice rather than as a genre is developed with a deep compositiona…
Down at the Docks
"This dialogue between the two musicians sounds both genuine and profound; a sort of four-handed diary, reflecting throughout the natural moods, signs, colours, and spaces. Allusions, rips, bursts of humour and sudden gusts of poetry flow into each other in an unusual animation based on strings, wood, breaths and brass. Musical stories that linger with you." (Fabrizio Spera) Luca Tilli: celloSebi Tramontana: trombone
Situations
My relationship with Steve Lacy’s music is not occasional. It was for me the “door”. Since 2009, titled So Long!, I have presented several times a program with his compositions on bass clarinet. In the summer of 2013, on the mountains, I recorded the solo using the Bb clarinet, finding a bare, naked and raw dimension that marks an important point in my personal process with the music of Steve. “I try to be empty and to see what sounds” (Tom Raworth) Giancarlo nino LocatelliLacy’s tunes are devis…