Jazz /
Remedy II
"Voted “Best of 2021” by the critics of “The New York City Jazz Record,” the reaction to Remedy’s debut on the FSR label was not only a welcome boost to our morale but also confirmed the musical strategies we have been developing as a band: three equal partners, sharing an artistic vision where structure, collective interplay and individual free expression are evenly matched. While the ingredients will and have to change with each new piece, an instantly identifiable ensemble sound holds it all …
What Else Is There
In late winter of 2021, four improvisers convened in a Chicago studio. This rare event united UK pianist Alexander Hawkins, midwestern bassist Tatsu Aoki, stalwart drummer Michael Zerang, and me, sleepless Oakland guitarist Karl Evangelista (who had arrived in O'Hare mere hours before downbeat). During breaks, the conversation turned to music and family, two threads that seemed to dominate the waking lives of the musicians involved. Pondering this notion, Aoki asked, "What else is there?". "What…
All This This Here
The title of this new work for the Blue Shroud Band comes from Samuel Beckett’s “what is the word“, his last poem and an elegiac meditation on language. Additionally to “what is the word”, I have also used one of Beckett’s late poems “Brief Dream” which refers to the theme of transiting life and the acceptance of ending - “go end there / one fine day” and Barra Ó Seaghdha’s (Irish writer and poet) evocative poem “Waiting”. Two 18th century Edo Haiku complete the texts featured in this piece that…
Kairos
Do you remember the first musical meeting between Japanese-born, Irish-based pianist Izumi Kimura and legendary drum master Gerry Hemingway? It was the album Illuminated Silence recorded with Barry Guy. Today it's the two of them, Kimura and Hemingway, in the second installment of their artistic collaboration. In front of you is the album Kairos, containing five signature compositions by the two artists, one track each of their own, and the traditional song Over The Tide. And for poetry lovers, …
Stone Stone Stone
*2023 stock* "This album, the first under the band's name in six and a half years, is a jazz alternative album with a multilingual and hardcore taste that differs greatly from previous albums.
The recording for this album started in June 2020, during a period when many of our activities were being cancelled due to Covid-19. It had been a while since I last met or played with the members of this band, with whom prior to the pandemic I would regularly get together for gigs at various venues or tr…
Moonshine
One of the most gifted, prolific and adventurous figures on Egypt's thriving experimental arts scene, Louca has in recent years garnered a global reputation through three previous solo albums and an expanding, evolving lineup of genre-defying collaborations. The Wire called his 2014 sophomore solo effort, Salute the Parrot, "remarkable music-dense, driven and splashed with colour. For Louca, Elephantine serves as both the pinnacle of his wide-ranging experience and a bold next step in his develo…
We Could Be Flying
"Un must per tutti i DJ! Un raro capolavoro della Polydor, che include la famosa Raindrops, Raindrops. Un must per chi ascolta Karin Krog per la prima volta. Un must per tutti gli amanti dell'ambient e del crossover." - Makoto Saito
Meta Zero
Temporary Super Offer! The music on this CD is an impressive document of such a search for meaning and artistic legitimacy. It doesn’t want to add something even louder to the supposedly spectacular. On the contrary: Here, it is about the subtle intimacy and emotionality of human relationships, about breathing as one. It is about being interested in each other beyond ever new superlatives. This is where the unobtrusive authenticity of this music comes from, what makes it special and thoughtful. …
Ink Folly, Orchid Gleam
"Ink Folly, Orchid Gleam is a piece in two movements for alto saxophone, upright bass, and drum set. Each movement was transmuted from a two-part poem of the same name, which was first drafted on a bus to my home of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The pang to return to where nature is abundant wasn't something I expected would be so strong when I moved to New York, but Ink Folly, Orchid Gleam is a product of those emotions. Written with my dear friends Mathias Jensen and Eliza Salem in mind, I knew I…
In Focus
Listen to Misha Panfilov's latest release and witness the mastery of beat, mood, and melody as he teams up with jazzaggression. None can do it better than Misha Panfilov!
Flowers In Space
"This is the first LP (following a cassette) released under Drew Gardner’s name and it’s a doozy. Drew is a guitarist, probably best known as a founding member of Elkhorn (although his musical partnerships with Jesse Shepard go back way further than that), and his recent work with Jeffrey Alexander’s Heavy Lidders has also been noteworthy as hell. The band here is a trio with Andy Cush (Garcia Peoples) on bass, and the extremely well documented Ryan Jewell on drums. Drew’s guitar playing is jazz…
Un Hombre De Buenos Aires
Jazz, funk, and bossa vibes kiss each other, all wrapped up in JLR's trademark cinematic feel. In his colourful Un Hombre de Buenos Aires, recorded in 1978, JLR puts the political outcry of his early 70s works aside and focuses on his love for the city of Buenos Aires. Jorge López Ruiz gets far less credit than he deserves. His crucial role in shaping Argentina's jazz history should place him right next to Gato Barbieri and Lalo Schifrin, who found success abroad. It's an honour do dig deeper in…
Volume 2
Super groups are always risky—the potential for disappointing fans or warring musical styles is high—but when longtime friends and masterful improvisers come together, they usually work. Evident in their first collaboration, simply titled Volume 1, John Dikeman (Saxophone; When The Time Is Right, 577 Records, 2021) joined musicians Pat Thomas (Piano; Shifa Live at Cafe Oto 2019, BleySchool 2019, Shifa Live in Oslo 2020, Educated Guess 2021), John Edwards (Bass; EMPoWered. 577 Records, 2021), and…
Extensions
Pianist and composer Simon Nabatov has played with "who's who" of the jazz and improvised music community, given concerts in over 60 countries, appeared on the numerous international festivals, received prizes and documented his music on 30 CD's under his own name. His musical activities include Jazz, improvised, experimental and world music. Nabatov’s initial idea to extend his Cologne-based quartet - hence the CD title – resulted in this exciting musical document. Both tracks, while fully impr…
Basenezmen
*2023 stock* Recorded in Royal Alzheimer Hall, Thessaloniki, Greece, January 2015, Limited release of 500 unique record covers for the 500 hand-numbered copies of the Basenezmen music project. Two of the most important musicians in Greece are currently together for the first time to present ‘basenezmen’ project. They improvise under rythmic structures in form of jazz, rock, ambient and folk music.
Conversations From The Past
*2023 stock* Lakis Tzimkas and Milcho Leviev came in contact in 2002 during their first common performance. Ever since, a special bond has been created in both personal and artistic levels. One of the outcomes of this common progression is this recording, five years before Milco Leviev had passed (1937-2019). This CD features compositions by both. The style oscillates between the classical and jazz music bordering the cinematic. Musical narrations create a tension that births the sense of depth,…
Something There
*2023 stock* "Almost two years of inactivity have passed. The main reason was the pandemic, of course, but there was also a second one, an eight-month period when I could not use my left arm because of a shoulder fracture. But still, on the 21st of October 2021, I performed solo at the Open Jazz events of Demetria Festival. In one of the old warehouses in the port of Thessaloniki which have been converted into cinema halls. Right across the port authority where I served for three years. The tens…
Skra’s Confession
*2023 stock* The Orange Blue Green band improvises freely in the true sense of the word. An improvisation initiating from the very first sound produced without any prior coordination regarding the style, structure or anything relating to the overall musical form. An acoustic, almost classical trio that has embraced the fundamental features of the sound of chamber music, along with the various musical idioms and experiences of the members’ multi-dimensional course. Their music features a primal e…
At Tilos, Budapest
Blurt was founded in Stroud, UK, in 1979 as part of the post-punk movement by poet, saxophonist und puppeteer Ted Milton along with Milton's brother Jake, formerly of psychedelic group Quintessence, on drums and Peter Creese on guitar. After three albums Creese left the band to be replaced by Herman Martin on synthesizers who, after a year of constant touring left the band, and was replaced by Steve Eagles, former member of Satan's Rats, The Photos and Bang Bang Machine. Shortly thereafter Jake …
Divisions
A suite of four new compositions from Johnny Hunter, performed beautifully, stylishly, and most creatively by this trio of great players. The music treads a fine line between free jazz and free improvisation, areas where these musicians live easily and naturally. By turns exciting, textural, sensual, joyously cool. Johnny writes "The recording came off the back of the trio's tour where they were performing purely Free Improvisation. The interest is in how they would now treat some composed mater…