This bundle includes the following CDs:

- Colin Webster and Dirk Serries "Light Industry" (NWOJ035)
- Dirk Serries, Martina Verhoeven and Colin Webster "Praxis" (NWOJ034)
- SETT "First and Second" (NWOJ033)
- Daniel Thompson "Finch" (NWOJ032)
- Dirk Serries, Benedict Taylor and Martina Verhoeven "An Evening at Jazzblazzt" (NWOJ031)
- Dirk Serries, and Tom Malmendier "Vanguard" (NWOJ030)
- Jürg Frey "Echo.Trio.Fragile.Eyot." (NWOJ029)
- Andrew Cheetam and Alan Wilkinson "The Vortex of Past Time" (NWOJ028)

- - - - - - - - - -

Colin Webster and Dirk Serries "Light Industry" (NWOJ035)

"Colin Webster and Dirk Serries are skilled improvisers you can’t pin down on a single outlet. They remain restless seekers, never content with merely repeating themselves, not even within the same project. Compare Gargoyles to Light Industry. They are totally different." - Guy Peters

"Serries and Webster meet again at their favorite studio, Sunny Side in Anderlecht, Belgium, in September 2019 for an intimate duo where Serries plays only acoustic guitars. They already recorded a duo album before, Gargoyles (Raw Tonk, 2018) and Light Industry continue their restless search for new challenges, dynamics, and textures, but now in expanded improvisations that deepen their personal approaches, including unique, extended techniques and manipulations of their instruments. The free-associative improvisation focuses on dense, fierce and nervous interactions without committing themselves to coherent patterns or narratives. Only Blade attempts a more contemplative approach but without giving up its thorny perspective. The self-taught Serries runs all over the strings, plucks and hammer the strings with irresistible, manic force while Webster keeps shouting and crying his provocative calls, but both Webster and Serries are always attentive and immediately responding to each other’s gestures.” - Free Jazz Blog

Performed, recorded, mixed and mastered at the Sunny Side Inc. Studio, Anderlecht (Belgium) on September 6th 2019.

Colin Webster: alto sax
Dirk Serries: acoustic guitars

- - - - - - - - - -

Dirk Serries, Martina Verhoeven and Colin Webster "Praxis" (NWOJ034)

"It’s the classic 'the journey, not the destination' attitude. Dealing with the moment. Dirk Serries, Martina Verhoeven and Colin Webster have a refreshing take on that. They use instruments, but it feels as if they are playing with wood and metal. With breath and touch. They caress, pluck, sigh, thump, blow, push, creak, sputter. There is no obvious order to what they are doing, yet you are aware of a certain concord, an understanding below the surface of what’s there. The openness is a reminder of the autonomy of all the sounds, but is also a way of making you appreciate the amount of trust and intimacy." - Guy Peters

"Serries’ partner-pianist Martina Verhoeven joins the duo of Serries, who sticks here too to the acoustic guitars, and Webster in a studio session captured at the Sunny Side studio in December 2018. The Praxis of this trio is unhurried and sparse, quiet and contemplative. But the improvisations – with its twisted and manipulated sounds, extracted by an array of extended techniques – flow in total freedom and spacious atmosphere, sketching abstract textures that, intentionally, avoid dense, powerful climaxes. Serries, Verhoeven and Webster sound as investigating methodically yet in a highly intimate manner distinct aspects of the timbral horizons of their instruments, apart and together. Throughout the seven short pieces, each breath, touch, pluck, sigh, thump, blow, push, creak or sputter receives the utmost importance., with great focus on detail and control. Fissure brings that strategy to its most impressive result as it suggests hypnotic drone colored in exotic Eastern undercurrents.” - Free Jazz Blog

Performed, recorded, mixed and mastered at the Sunny Side Inc. Studio, Anderlecht (Belgium) on December 15th 2018.

Dirk Serries: acoustic guitars
Martina Verhoeven: piano
Colin Webster: alto sax

- - - - - - - - - -

SETT "First and Second" (NWOJ033)

"To fully grasp the range of extended techniques, you should be able to see them in action, but it is also perfectly possible to listen to this music and focus on elements such as flow, density and responsiveness." - Guy Peters

"SETT is a an acoustic strings quartet, featuring British most prolific double bass player John Edwards, Dirk Serries and Daniel Thompson on acoustic guitars and violist Benedict Taylor, recorded at the Dave Hunt studio, London in November 2019. SETT does not attempt to offer free-improvised chamber music, but to push the sonic envelope of these fearless improvisers. First and Second offers two extended improvisations, rooted in the legacy of the British legacy of uncompromising, non-idiomatic free music. The interplay on First SETT is super intense, physical and often tough and confrontational, as if all are in a kind of a battle of bows (and extended bowing techniques), with few segments where the interplay opens for more sparse interactions. Clearly, SETT resists any rhythmic or melodic patterns but creating a fertile, provocative tension that keeps feeding the challenging music. Second SETT adopts a completely different strategy. SETT builds the tension slowly in an introspective and subtle manner and as the interplay is more emphatic and open, with brief sparks of playfulness. Patiently, SETT solidifies the nuanced texture but also emphasizes that this first recording session of SETT is only the beginning of a promising future." - Free Jazz Blog

Performed at the Dave Hunt studio (London, UK) on November 16th 2019. Recorded and mixed by Dave Hunt. Mastered by Dirk Serries.

John Edwards: double bass
Dirk Serries: acoustic guitar
Benedict Taylor: viola
Daniel Thompson: acoustic guitar

- - - - - - - - - -

Daniel Thompson "Finch" (NWOJ032)

"The British tradition of guitar improvisation includes some game changers like the Derek Bailey, but also John Russell, Keith Rowe and Fred Frith. Yet it doesn’t prevent Daniel Thompson from carving out his own little corner. Finch proves that even in the most demanding and intimidating of circumstances, Thompson has a sharp, creative mind. Surely, there will be more to follow. There should be." - Guy Peters

"Daniel Thompson's Finch contains music recorded in a studio called the Sunny Side Inc. Studio on August 9th 2019, surely one of those hot days of the previous European summer. Previously, I heard Thompson’s music as part of a duo with Colin Webster (Vital Weekly 1198) on the same label, which I quite enjoyed and this one is along similar lines. Playing improvised music on an acoustic guitar goes back a long way, to Derek Bailey and many others (seeing Olaf Rupp playing one was a personal highlight for me) and Thompson does a great job. He plays short phrases and repeats them for a while, allowing for small changes in them. Within a piece he can switch to other techniques or even picks up a bow, scratching and bending strings, but his playing does not seem to the extent to going all nervous and hectic string abuse (like a kid would uncontrolled go up and down the strings). Thompson keeps his playing refined, delicate and, above all, controlled. Not necessarily his playing is always quiet, even when an element of introspection seems to be running through these pieces, but some delicate force is never far away.” - Vital Weekly

- - - - - - - - - -

Dirk Serries, Benedict Taylor and Martina Verhoeven "An Evening at Jazzblazzt" (NWOJ031)

"Another special such place, situated in Holland, but only a few hundred meters from the Belgian border, is JazzBlazzt. It is as homely as can get - basically a garage turned into a small concert venue - but at the same time a miraculous place, where many artists that have appeared on this label have performed." - Guy Peters

"Dirk Serries, still on acoustic guitar, meets again violist Benedict Taylor, and pianist Martina Verhoeven (she plays only on the second set) in a live performance at the free music haven JazzBlazzt in June 2019. Serries and Taylor already recorded a debut duo album, the studio Puncture Cycle (A New Wave of Jazz, 2019), and, obviously, Verhoeven is a close collaborator of Serries. The live setting offers a more raw, immediate and turbulent encounter of Serries and Taylor. Both sound as if they are jumping from one sonic collision to another, maneuvering and teasing each other in a tense and muscular game. The addition of Verhoeven, with her inside-the-piano extended techniques, changes the dynamics into more thoughtful and conversational ones, sometimes as of an experimental, chamber string trio. The patient but still intense modes of interactions gently explore and stimulate timbral contrasts, fascinating palette of colors and challenging dynamics." - Free Jazz Blog

Both sets performed live at Jazzblazzt (Neeritter, The Netherlands) on June 8th 2019. Recorded and mixed by Mike Kramer. Mastered at the Sunny Side Inc. Studio, Anderlecht (Belgium).

Dirk Serries: acoustic guitar
Benedict Taylor: viola
Martina Verhoeven: piano (on set 2)

- - - - - - - - - -

Dirk Serries, and Tom Malmendier "Vanguard" (NWOJ030)

"As Derek Bailey once argued, the term ‘improvisation’ is loaded with such widespread connotations (the music is unprepared, flippant, without depth) that you’d almost hesitate to use it. However, no better alternative has become available and moreover: one close listen to Vanguard lets you know that you are dealing with skilled and inspired improvisers adding a worthwhile chapter to a 50-plus years legacy." - Guy Peters

Performed, recorded, mixed and mastered at the Sunny Side Inc. Studio, Anderlecht (Belgium) on December 15th 2018.

Tom Malmendier: drums
Dirk Serries: acoustic guitars

- - - - - - - - - -

Jürg Frey "Echo.Trio.Fragile.Eyot." (NWOJ029)

"Taken together, these works not only trigger concentrated, deep(er) listening, making a great case for the importance of silence as a decisive and structural element, but they also stress that the line between a composition and an installation is an imaginary one, or at least much more fluid than one might think." - Guy Peters

"Four remarkable avant-garde recordings, two of which document sound installations – gently inspiring." - Kevin Press, The Moderns

"I easily admit I don’t know much about Jürg Frey, the Swiss composer, other than he is a member of the Wandelweiser group of composers. What I do know is that his music is very quiet, almost like non-existing and I had to turn up the volume quite a bit here to hear anything at all. According to the liner notes the four pieces are connected even when they are quite different, both in composing and performing. Two pieces are from installations and are performed by Frey alone. In Paysage d’échos he plays harmonica, melodica and piano and in Equilibre fragile bird pipes. The latter piece is so extremely silent that I had to turn up the volume a lot and yes, there are bird pipes and even more silence. I liked the other one better, in which the notes are sustained on the harmonica and melodica, while the piano plays sparse notes. Somehow this sounds like a very sorrowful piece of music. Frey using a computer, which I somehow found remarkable, played all instruments on both of them. The other two pieces are Streichtrio, for violin, viola and violoncello and Eyot for piano. In the trio piece, it seems as if the three instruments are barely touched upon. They are, you can hear that, but almost with some hesitation, it seems, and always followed by a bit of silence. I am not sure if I would say the same of the piano piece. There are intervals with silence here too, but not so much the hesitant approach to the keys, I think. The cover explains that all of these pieces can be regarded as ‘static’, without much direction or journey and that’s why they appear on a CD together. It is quiet and it’s static and it’s surely quite beautiful. Best enjoyed by letting it all just happen as it rolls along." - Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

Paysage d’échos (2009)
Jürg Frey : harmonica, melodica, piano

Streichtrio (1997)
Angharad Davies: violin
Johnny Chang: viola
Stefan Thut: violoncello

Equilibre fragile (2014)
Jürg Frey: bird pipes

Eyot (2004)
Antonio Correa: piano

- - - - - - - - - -

Andrew Cheetam and Alan Wilkinson "The Vortex of Past Time" (NWOJ028)

"And there is an abundance of material displayed here, as Andrew Cheetham and Alan Wilkinson combine impressive technical prowess, dynamics and imagination into a whole that combines physicality with thoughtfulness, tumult with intimacy. A musical performance remains the ideal way to deal with the impermanence of everything, and this album makes an excellent case." Guy Peters

"Percussionist Cheetham and reedist Wilkinson, veteran improvisers of the UK scene, collaborate here on four tracks of dense explorations. Ostensibly “free jazz”, the album features the push and pull of that rough genre between creativity and control. Wilkinson trades off saxes and clarinet (but mostly saxes), and has a wailing, punctuated style with rich textures and colors. Cheetham is busy on and off the drum kit, bringing into the fore various objects to generate multi-rhythmic and arhythmic rattlings. Across four tracks (two of which are in the 20-minute range), Wilkinson provides rolling lines and oscillations with staccato bursts. This combines well with Cheetham’s aggressive cymbal-work. But when not going all out, this duo slows things down to a more atmospheric level with distorted drones over unstructured drum patterns, and the occasional tortured vocalizations from Wilkinson. This is very much a 'live in the studio' recording that could have easily passed as a live performance.” - Avant Music News

Andrew Cheetham: drums
Alan Wilkinson: alto and baritone sax, bass clarinet, voice

Recorded & mixed at Queen's Ark Audio, Manchester by Karl Sveinsson on 25th April 2017. Mastered by Alex Ward in London in January 2019. Title taken from the novel 'Austerlitz' by W. G. Sebald.