Jazz /
Entendre
A fascinating solo album from the Swiss pianist, composer and conceptualist best known as leader of the bands Ronin and Mobile, Entendre offers deeper insight into Nik Bärtch’s musical thinking. As the album title implies Entendre is about hearing as a creative process, referencing the patient unfolding of Bärtch’s modular polymetric pieces, with alertness to the dynamics of touch, finding freedom in aesthetic restriction, serving the flow of each piece’s development while also taking the music …
Vermillion
Kit Downes joins forces with long-time collaborators Petter Eldh on bass and James Maddren on drums for a carefully assorted piano trio programme that treads gentle lyricism and bold creative outbursts in equal measures. Downes, whose prior ECM offering Dreamlife of Debris was termed a “work of otherworldly beauty” by BBC Music Magazine, carves out some of his most compendious pieces to date on Vermillion. Replete with subtle twists and turns, the trio offers its idiosyncratic take on the piano …
It's Always Now
Ralph Alessi’s fourth appearance as a leader for the label follows a singular album run that’s been met with nothing but praise from The New York Times to The Guardian. The latter lauded Ralph’s previous recording Imaginary Friends (2019) for its “elegant balance of poignant, playful original compositions and gracefully probing improv” and declared it “his best album yet”. It’s Always Now however brims with arguments that there is a new contender for that title. On his new album, Alessi’s unique…
Last Decade
German-American pianist Benjamin Lackner makes his highly melodious ECM debut with an all-star quartet of trumpeter Mathias Eick, the esteemed Manu Katché on drums and bassist Jérôme Regard. Mathias and Manu share an extensive recording history with ECM and their respectively unique instrumental signatures can be traced across this set of exclusively original material – eight pieces by Benjamin, one by Jérôme. The bassist and the leader’s partnership goes all the way back to 2002, when, in New Y…
Naked Truth
There is a searching, yearning quality to Naked Truth, and a raw beauty and vulnerability in Avishai Cohen’s trumpet sound on his most improvisational ECM recording to date. Very much music-of-the moment, found and shaped in the course of a remarkable recording session in the South of France, Naked Truth takes the form of an extemporaneous suite. For most of its length the Israeli trumpeter painstakingly leads the way, closely shadowed by his long-time comrades – pianist Yonathan Avishai, bassi…
Circle - Paris Concert
Circle was a band on fire with creativity. Chick Corea and Dave Holland had just left Miles Davis’s band, keen to explore all parameters of new music in an improvised context. Anthony Braxton, equally inspired by Stockhausen and Coltrane, brought in new directions from the AACM. Barry Altschul’s resumé included extensive work with Paul Bley. Together they were, for a while, matchless. Corea called the Paris Concert (recorded 1971) the realization of a dream. Melody Maker: “Paris Concert is evide…
Bordeaux Concert
Bordeaux Concert is a special document from Keith Jarrett’s last European tour. Each of Jarrett’s 2016 solo piano concerts had its own strikingly distinct character, and in Bordeaux the lyrical impulse is to the fore. In the course of this improvised suite, many quiet discoveries are made, and there is a touching freshness to the music as a whole, a feeling of intimate communication. Reviewing the July 2016 performance, the French press spoke of hints of the Köln Concert and Bremen-Lausanne in t…
Affirmation
Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen, an ECM musician for more than fifty years, is a masterful player who has always welcomed a challenge. His first recording with his new quartet – including rising stars Marius Neset and Helge Lien (both bandleaders in their own right)– is almost entirely improvised. The players make the leap of faith together and find and develop forms at the moment, an object lesson in spontaneous group creativity. Affirmation was recorded in November 2021 at Oslo’s Rainbow Stud…
Quartet Un Peu Tendre
Improvised music from Sophie Agnel, Kristoff K. Roll, Daunik Lazro.
Copenhagen
Sparkling Sessions featuring Jac Berrocal, Vincent Epplay and Tzarina re-Tuned. Recorded on the 8th and 9th October in Copenhagen.
Gush 30 Kraków 2018
3-CDs box-set documents Gush residency at Alchemia club in Krakow in November 2018 celebrating band's 30th aniversary. Gush performs precisely as one might anticipate from a trio of seasoned musicians who have collaborated for three decades. Gustafsson's saxophone emulates the qualities of the human voice, Sandell's piano evokes both lyricism and percussive rhythm, while Strid's drums exude a captivating, enigmatic fluidity in their aesthetics. Their collective efforts yield an intense, abstract…
Go Home and Go to Bed!!!
*250 copies limited edition* Tenor saxophone player Junji Hirose and guitarist Kazuo Imai, both Tokyo residents born in 1955, are two of Japan’s representative improvisers. Revered musicians who have long been leading Japan’s improvised music scene, they continue to carry out a wide range of performance activities with tireless energy. Their collaborative recording "Be Quiet!!!," a trio CD with drummer Darren Moore, was released on the Meenna label in April 2023. One year later, their new duo al…
As Far As November
2024 stock. When the stage is soaked with gasoline, a simple spark of sound from one of them will be needed to blow everything up in the air. That fleeting moment, which barely lasts as long as it takes a note to emerge from the sax, a double bass string to start to vibrate, or to hit a drum head, will now carry on for an hour on the clock. Make no mistake, everything that seems to happen during that time, in fact, is contained in a very single instant. It is a big bang of musical energy expandi…
Ytinamuh
2024 stock. Natalia Kordiak is one of the most promising vocalists, we believe, not only on the Polish but also on the European jazz scene. Ytinamuh (Humanity) is her new album, the second in her career, recorded with a band composed of Poland's most talented young musicians. Maciej Lewenstein wrote in his review : "A clear Masterpiece, and one of the best Polish improvised vocal records of all times!!!"
Keep The Dream Up
2024 stock. "The Session. The day started out a little different - Park West Studio is in Brooklyn and so am I. It's not too far, but I would need to take the subway and walk a bit so I decided to make it easier on myself and take a cab. When I got in the cab, I started to space out and think about the music. The ride seemed like it was taking too long, and I regained consciousness and asked “are we going the right way?” The cabbie got short with me and said we were almost there. He stopped and …
Seven Skies Orchestra
2024 stock. The great maestro Ivo Perelman rarely gives samples of his playing in the setting of larger ensembles. This is perhaps the first time we have had the opportunity to listen to him in the setting of a sextet formation. Especially for this session, the ensemble consists of some of the greatest experts in their instrumental classes. Here, Nate Wooley meets vibraphonist Matt Moran, and all this is set against a backdrop of exquisite string players including Mat Maneri, Fred Lonberg Holm, …
The House Of Memory
2024 stock. "João Pedro, Silvia, Adriano: three friends, three travel companions, three alchemists capable of giving infinite shades of color to music; listening to them is like enjoying the beauty of an exhibition of abstract paintings, yet full of warmth and sensitivity. A far cry from certain forms of art that are undoubtedly important, perhaps even necessary, but that creep into the darker side of emotions and life: in this case we are in that expressive sphere, so difficult to navigate, whi…
Duot With Strings
2024 stock. Saxophone player Albert Cirera one of the most important Spanish improvisers works with Ramon Prats fascinating drummer from many years. They both are one of the shinest points on the European musical scene. On the other hand ZARM Ensemble. ZARM Ensemble is an award-winning string quartet started by legendary Portugal violin master Carlos "Zíngaro”, David Magalhães Alves (Violin), Ulrich Mitzlaff (Cello), and Alvaro Rosso (Double bass).From an almost compulsive fascination with sound…
Live At The Hungry Brain
2024 stock. Trumpeter Russ Johnson is a recent Midwest transplant after spending 23 years as an important member of New York City’s jazz community. He has seven recordings as a leader or co-leader and performed on more than 75 recordings as a sideman. Russ has worked alongside many of the legendary figures in jazz including Lee Konitz, Steve Swallow, Bill Frisell, and Joe Lovano. In addition, he has recorded and/or performed with a long list of the most prominent musicians currently on the inter…