Jazz /
Words Fail
*200 copies edition* The debut release from the trio of Chris Abrahams (piano), Clayton Thomas (bass & preparations), & Miles Thomas (drums & percussion), Words Fail is an intergenerational meeting of the minds. Despite the quintessential trio format, the sound world subverts the instrumentation across four expansive improvisations. Beginning with a lone piano note, repeating like droplets of water on a glassy lake, the interwoven textures of Clayton Thomas’ prepared double-bass & Miles Thomas’ …
Vibration!
"For the years Columbus was lucky enough to call him ours, drummer Ryan Jewell was our leading proponent of Emily Dickinson’s maxim “tell the truth but tell it slant.” He placed an idiosyncratic, indelible, and always swinging stamp on any context he assailed, from the insidiously catchy quirk of Terribly Empty Pockets to the righteous brainy scuzz-punk of Pink Reason to spacy evocative noise with collaborators like Mike Shiflet and C. Spencer Yeh to shepherding Psychedelic Horsehit through thei…
Live at OZO Land
After a long hiatus due to obvious reasons, Goncalo Almeida & Dirk Serries played an exclusive duo performance at Jazzblazzt in The Netherlands. Open air at the lovely Ozo Land location. Recorded live on June 5, 2021.
The Other Lies
“”The Other Lies is a collection of six improvised duets performed by Tom Jackson on clarinet Colin Webster on alto and baritone saxophones. Tom Jackson is very accomplished in the fields of contemporary classical music and free improvisation. He also holds a Ph.D from Canterbury Christ Church University. Colin Webster is a musician whose works I’ve reviewed here before. When one of his releases comes up on my Bandcamp feed I always take notice. He’s a prolific and under appreciated figure in th…
Melancholia
“‘Melancholia’ is, perhaps, a somewhat misleading title for the duet of John Edward (double bass) and label boss Dirk Serries (acoustic guitar). One might expect some sad music, a soft thud on the bass, a few strums on the acoustic guitar, but it is clear that these men deal with a different kind of melancholia right from the start. In the two pieces (forty-four minutes), I think there is a mutual agreement between the two to work along dynamic lines. They cut out the middle ground, it seems. Th…
One In The Eye
“From May this year, One In The Eye is a double CD bringing together Alan Wilkinson and Dirk Serries for selection jagged, moody, to-playful improv. The set features one disc taking in eight tracks, and a second disc features two longer work-out.
The first disc opens with the nearing six minutes of “Upshot”- here we find Serries jagging ‘n’ jerking strums weaved with Wilkinson energetic and at points quite seared sax work- this works as a nicely urgent and shifting opener for the release, throwi…
Pieces Of Apparatus
“Pieces Of Apparatus severs up five examples of extremely sparse and often spaced-out improv for guitar- with all the tracks unfolding in both a jaggedly wondering, dartingly inventive, and largely rewarding manner. Here on the New Wave Of Jazz label is CD release, presented in the labels house style packaging of a white and grey box gatefold, that features a worthy write-up about both Gérard work in general and the pieces offered up here.
Pierre Gérard is based in Liège, Belgium- and has been …
Ballads From The Wrecked Ship
Ballads From The Wrecked Ship is a decidedly varied and rather wonderful improv release, which sits somewhere between sonic creativity and atmospheric moodiness. The seven-track album slides in at a concise and focused forty minutes, and I must say it certainly stand as one of more distinctive/ original improv release I have heard in some time. The album appears on the always worthy/ interesting New Wave Of Jazz- coming in the labels house style mini grey gatefold packaging, which as always fea…
Monólogos A Dois
**Limited edition of 100 copies** “I am not sure if with the double bass there are various types, like with the guitar, but none is mentioned on the cover or the fact if this is a mono recording. The latter probably not. It was recorded in the spacious surrounding of the old church in Oud-Charlois, which is a part of Rotterdam and home to a few great concerts, some of these involving the church organ housed there. Goncalo Almeida stuck to his bass. We know him for his one-off collaboration with …
Flute Music
James Newton’s 1977 self-released solo-debut, ‘Flute Music’ is an unheralded gem of the 70’s jazz underground. An album that showcases a diverse range of styles and fervent cross-pollination, while retaining a clear sense of direction and cohesion. An artist funnelling their wild expression into multiple facets of “The New Music”, crafting an auspicious and artistic debut. Newton would later go on to record with revered jazz labels like India Navigation and ECM, and collaborate with fellow creat…
Live
"Devoting more than forty years to the painstaking development of an individual style doesn’t mean that British tenor saxophonist Evan Parker eschews new challenges and collaborations. Live is notable, however, because Parker manages, without altering his distinctive reed patterns, to seamlessly match his contributions to those of the Paris-based trio Marteau Rouge. And Parker does so without upsetting the perceptive strategies that members of the trio have developed during their years together.…
Café Oto, London, The 22th Of January 2020
A momentous 2020 concert at London's Cafe OTO, presented in two discs, the 1st with label leader Jean-Marc Foussat in a solo improvisation on synth and voice, the 2nd in a trio with Daunik Lazro on tenor & baritone sax, and Evan Parker on soprano sax, the 2 saxophones weaving and responding to Foussat's remarkable alien soundscapes and vocalization in an immersive extended improvisation.
Spie(l)gelungen
The EMS Synthi AKS was introduced in 1972 as a portable analog synthesizer, used in many avant rock & electronic settings; on Spielgelungen both Jean-Marc Foussat and Thomas Lehn perform on the Synthi, their adept skills and experience with the instrument in free improv highlight both their incredible creative drive and the flexibility of the AKS.
Noir
"Noir" is the first studio album of the bleakly imaginative trio Marteau Rouge (French for "Red Hammer"), consisting of Makoto Sato on drums, Jean-Marc Foussat on VSC 11 and vocals and the talented guitar player Jean-Francois Pauvros (former collaborator of proper miliar stones of noise scene such as Sonic Youth and Keiji Haino), after their brilliant live recording with legendary free-improvisational saxophone player Evan Parker, whose absence on this record gives this amazing ensemble the poss…
Bennu
Rempis and Ra have worked together for about fifteen years. Most regularly since 2012 in their trio with Joshua Abrams, which expanded into a quartet in 2016 with the addition of pianist Jim Baker. That band is a real working unit, having performed dozens of gigs in Chicago and abroad, and releasing three critically-acclaimed records, also on Aerophonic: Aphelion (2014), Perihelion (2016), and Apsis (2019). The diligent work these two improvisers have put in together in that context has slowl…
24 Hrs
The rarefied music of Ramuntcho Matta returns to Emotional Rescue with the first ever reissue of his album, 24 Hrs. Recorded in 1986 – the same year as his influential Ecoute... – the album finds Matta working in a less playful, more experimental framework but with the same ground breaking results. Again collaborating with a selection of accomplished players, 24 Hrs sees Matta (electronics, guitars, marimba, melodica, sanza, vocals) work again with Cacau de Queiroz (flute and saxaphones) and Eli…
나를 (Na-Reul)
Extremely personal and passionate, cellist Okkyung Lee recorded this album after separation from her instrument for months; the 9 pieces are layered with strings, instrument sounds, voice and with profound timing, creating an intensely beautiful album reflecting the anguish and loss of the time.
Brass And Ivory Tales
Great saxophonist, improviser Ivo Perelman celebrates its 60th birthday this year. Brass & Ivory tales - 9 CDs box-set is a gift for this phenomenal musician, great human being, and marvelous artist. Nine studio sessions with nine top and most creative pianists like Dave Burrell, Marilyn Crispell, Aruan Ortiz, Sylvie Courvoisier, Angelica Sanchez, Aaron Parks, Agusti Fernandez, Craig Taborn, and Vijay Iyer in a beautiful box with liner notes from Grammy Award Winner writer Neil Tesser
Lepomis Gibbosus
Fundacja Sluchaj! presents a new recording by Gerard Lebik (tenor sax), John Edwards (doubke bass) and Paul Lovens (Drums), performed live on 23 of April 2015 at Lublin Jazz Festival
"They are sameïliar which means each one resembles the one before as well as the consecutive one as if they were the same. Perhaps they were all the same in a utopian past, or there was even only one of them – which must have been, then, identical. The sameïliarity they show holds that the same is always different. …
Yakut's Gallop
Ming Bau Set is a collective of three improvisers who began meeting regularly in 2018 to deeply explore improvisation and song form. Over the next three years this process yielded a shared language and vision of music realization that led to their first publication, Yakut's Gallop. They utilized both acoustic and electronic resources to carve a personal sound as well as a sense of place with their inventions. The trio, as it has matured, is notable for its cross generational constitution. Gerry …