Paradoxical Frog - Union (Clean Feed, 2012)

It's been a bit since we've done this, but Paolo and Paul both could not help bursting into spontaneous prose on this new release from Paradoxical Frog...

Paradoxical Frog - Union (Clean Feed, 2012) ****½

By Paolo Casertano

What a fascinating album! If you have the chance, as I did, to listen to it in a rainy day and with a pair of comfortable headphones you will be immediately catapulted and wrapped in a warm hug of long notes and dilated atmospheres, highly lyrical and dramatic, but never melancholic.

Every musician takes his time to distil few powerful notes. It’s just as if the three of them are there thinking a lot, waiting, feeling the right moment, searching the right approach to say something really important to their companions. And they succeed in doing this for the whole work. Kris Davis on piano chooses short, meaningful phrases. Ingrid Laubrock has a magnetic tone, whispered and mesmerizing. I’d say feminine, even not knowing she’s a woman.

Tyshawn Sorey impresses me. You perceive his monolithic presence. He can be silent for minutes and when his drumming arrives it is rhythm made flesh. Feel it in 'Second Strike'.

There are of course some more speedy episodes, as 'Fear the Fairy Dust', but the result is never frantic.
This is, among the trio releases I’ve been lately listening to, maybe the closest to a spoken conversation. I have no other words to describe it. They would.

If I am allowed to do that, I will steal two ways of saying from our Stef. 'Higly recommended' and 'this is jazz'!


Paradoxical Frog - Union (Clean Feed, 2012) ****½

By Paul Acquaro

Not so long ago at the MOMA in NYC there was a featured exhibition called "Stop, Repair, Prepare: Variations on “Ode to Joy” for a Prepared Piano." It was in a large open space of the museum, with stark white walls and high ceilings. In the middle of this space, there was a piano with a hole cut out of it just right for a human. At certain intervals a person would indeed emerge from inside the piano, reach forward and begin playing the keyboard while moving through the gallery.

When I first put on Paradoxical Frog's Union, this is pretty much what I imagined was happening. From a panoply of tones that you have to listen hard to attribute to their source, the playing begins from within the instruments, slowly reaching out and interacting with the space it's in.

Paradoxical Frog, in musical terms, is Kris Davis on piano, Ingrid Laubrock on tenor sax and Tyshawn Sorey on drums. Each brings a wonderful sense of tone, technical skills and compositions to the ensemble and this, their second release, is just fantastic. From the early formative sounds to the song snippets that emerge and dispel in their own time and space, the trio excels at creating music that is fresh and exciting while being warm and inviting -- if not also a bit challenging. Slower songs like 'Second Strike', a dark hued free-form melody stretching over washes of percussion and abstract comping contrasts beautifully with more upbeat and determined tunes like 'Union'. The combination of tempos and touch on 'Masterisk' makes for an exciting listen too.

Never unduly harsh, never overtly obviously, the songs unfold in their own lovely ways. The tones of Laubrock's sax, the splash of Sorey's cymbals and Davis' original and melodic playing come together so nicely here.


Take a look and listen:




You can buy the album from instantjazz.com.  

© stef

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Paradoxical Frog: Kris Davis, Ingrid Laubrock, and Tyshawn Sorey: Live at the Village Vanguard – July 21, 2026

By Brian Earley

My daughter and I walked up Seventh Avenue on a balmy, post-thunderstorm July night to one of the most well-known, and most sacred, of all jazz venues on the planet, the storied Village Vanguard, to catch the opening night of a week-long residence by the trio Paradoxical Frog.

Readers of the Free Jazz Blog might care to know this was a historical occasion and one that involved the reuniting of three musicians often discussed here at the FJC: pianist Kris Davis, saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey.

Behind the famous red doors that evening would perform an avant-garde trio that had not played together in over a decade. And the band’s unconventional leanings are perhaps less alien to the Vanguard than one might first guess. Davis and Sorey have performed at the Vanguard countless times, and Laubrock’s appearance is as rare and welcome as the recent celebrated stint of the James Brandon Lewis Quartet in the West Village club. This is to say nothing of the audience in the house that night: I spotted Sylvie Courvoisier a few seats behind me, and encountered William Parker outside the doors after the first set had concluded. Davis actually opened the show fact-checking the record. “I was corrected on social media,” she said. “It has not been fifteen years since the three of us played together; it has been eleven.” In any case, for listeners to either of the group’s two Cleanfeed recordings, 2010’s Paradoxical Frog, and 2012’s Union, it had been a long wait to hear these three masters perform in this distinct context.

The opening night’s set consisted of four long compositions, all of which have appeared on record at some point. The first performance, a combination of Laubrock’s “Masterisk” and Davis’s “Union” spanned over twenty-nine minutes. Seeing the work live allowed me to confirm just how through-composed these Paradoxical Frog pieces are. Note the extensive paper scores in Davis’s and Sorey’s hands and the extensions on Laubrock’s music stand: a necessary tool to display the lengthy writings of each work without requiring the saxophonist to flip pages of these surprising compositions that challenge functional harmony and defy circular rhythm.

 

The third work was “Whistlings” from 2020’s Blood Moon, the Intakt Records duo of Davis and Laubrock. The live performance, over twice the length of the original recording, featured Laubrock on soprano saxophone and Tyshawn Sorey on a sonic array of material, at times the room so quiet that Sorey’s percussion would consist of simply waving his brushes in the air, an effect that hauntingly filled the room with audible whisperings.

The set concluded with Sorey’s “Slow Burn,” clocking in at over sixteen minutes and featuring the mysterious repetition of single notes on Davis’s piano keys. It was moving to see these three unite again, and I am certain I do not speak alone in voicing my hopes for more work in the future, maybe even a Live at the Village Vanguard recording to place among some of the mythical voices who have passed through that hallowed underground room.

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Rainey, Laubrock, Davis and friends

Two years ago, I gave a five-star rating to pianist Kris Davis' "Rye Eclipse", a stunning album with great musical vision. Last year, saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock's "Sleepthief" was almost as good, and with equal strong musical vision, even stronger when I saw her perform with Tom Rainey and Liam Noble. Tom Rainey is without a doubt one of the best drummers of the moment, and features on many albums reviewed on this blog. So, having these musicians release in various line-ups is a pleasure for the avant-garde jazz fan.

Tom Rainey Trio - Pool School (Clean Feed, 2010) ****

A couple of weeks after "Swedish Azz", here is another diving woman on the cover of an adventurous album.  A symbol of not being afraid to jump in the deep, not afraid of cold water? A symbol of style, practice, discipline and grace? A symbol of creating ripples on the as yet untouched surface? A metaphor of daring to take a deep dive below the surface of things?

In my humble opinion, it signifies all of them. Rainey has swum in many waters, and still does. Laubrock has evolved from mainstream and even Latin towards complete free form, with a strong emotional voice and musical vision. And Mary Halvorson on electric guitar is an acquired taste, raw and unpredictable, sometimes hesitant yet rarely less than adventurous, yes, raw and fragile is possibly the best description of her paradoxical attitude to the instrument.

On this album, the trio explores an open-ended musical universe in twelve improvisations each clocking around five minutes long. Each piece has its own character of intimate or energetic trialogue, built around each other's inventions and spur of the moment ideas, yet sufficiently focused around some central concepts to have a sense of unity. Most pieces are quite abstract, even if Laubrock uses a rare melodic phrase once in a while, as on "Crinkles", or sudden rhythmic developments that disappear as fast as they came, otherwise you get bouncing sounds, nervous reactions, sonic build-ups, often with a harsh delivery that is the result of both dissatisfaction with the present as with joy in creating something new. Creative destruction if you want. Forget about long phrases or stretched sounds, it is all about pointillistic dots, as if the guitar and the sax have turned into percussion instruments, splashing notes on the canvas.

Listen and download from eMusic.


Kris Davis, Ingrid Laubrock, Tyshawn Sorey - Paradoxical Frog (Clean Feed, 2010) ****½

We find Ingrid Laubrock back on this other trio with Kris Davis on piano and Tyshawn Sorey on drums, another unusual trio line-up, for an album of equal quality despite its different approach. All eight tracks contain elements of composition and structure, and they are almost equally distributed among the trio : three by Davis, three by Sorey, two by Laubrock. Yet composition and structure act as footholds on an adventurous journey, the rocks which help you cross the stream.

In contrast to the Tom Rainey trio, the general nature of the music is more welcoming, more gentle, more organic in its development. The intensity can change dramatically in one and the same piece, evolving from high energy towards calm moments, yet it is the open nature of the pieces that is its strongest characteristic. Sorey's "Slow Burn" is indeed slow, with the least number of notes necessary to create a great atmosphere full of tension. The tones are stretched, and remain open, waiting for silence to evaporate them or to be replaced with new ones, quietly, slowly. On "Canines", the open nature remains, with silence dominating, fractured by some bluesy chords and incredibly sensitive blowing by Laubrock, possibly one of her biggest strengths, yet slowly a theme emerges, the tempo increases, and the piece gets some harmonic development, like a story being told. A musical story. The whole album is like this, with linear story-telling, careful attention to detail and overall effect, without falling back on easy patterns.

The biggest effect comes from the slow tension-building silences that define the overall sound : there is no hurry, the pace is measured, each note ripens fully and almost individually. The density of the album shifts repeatedly, but regardless of the moment, it is always very lyrical and with three musicians working as one on the same concept. Really great.

For those interested in the album's title : the paradoxical frog is also called the shrinking frog, because the tadpole can have three to four times the size of the adult animal.

Listen and download from eMusic.

Buy from Instantjazz.

© stef

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Latest New York-Toronto Collaborations

Rob Clutton and Tony Malaby – Offering (Snailbongbong Records, 2019) ***½

By Nick Ostrum

Between numerous releases on Clean Feed, No Business, and other labels, Tony Malaby has been measuredly prolific the last few years, including a fruitful string of collaborations with Kris Davis and Nick Fraser. Bassist Rob Clutton, it seems, has been, too. Most notably, he has served as the leader of his quartet The Cluttertones but he has also worked with everyone from Roscoe Mitchell and Anthony Braxton to fellow Torontonian classic-jazz devotee Steve Koven to Jandek and, yes, Nick Fraser.

Malaby, of course, is familiar. He is a mainstay of the downtown music scene. I have several of his releases and have seen him perform numerous times. Toronto-based Clutton, however, was unfamiliar to me before this release.

The music on Offering is refreshingly tender. It is not that it lacks it flourishes, clanks, or shrieks, but the focus lies more in the interaction of bluesy sax melodies and delicate, mournful bass lines that, at their best, bring to mind a Haden-esque dynamism between the soft (and sometimes too saccharine) to the angular and deeply percussive. Tracks on Offering run the gamut from the melodious (especially “Offering,” “Latitude” and Nick Fraser’s “Sketch #11”) to the clunky and freeer (“Twig,” “Swerve” (Malaby really shines on this one), “Triology”) to the soulfully downtown (“Polar”). There is something for nearly everyone on this album, whether the adventurous listener (at moments) or those who favor more lustrous contemporary jazz improvisation. Although tracks tend to be short vignettes and to vary stylistically, however, this album has a cohesion and completeness that is often missing from these types of duo recordings. An enjoyable listen, through and through.

Nick Fraser, Kris Davis, Tony Malaby with Ingrid Laubrock and Lina Allemano - Zoning (Astral Spirits, 2019) ****

By Taylor McDowell

Zoning is sophomore recording from the Fraser/Davis/Malaby trio following their 2015 release on CleanFeed Records. The trio is augmented here by Ingrid Laubrock (tenor saxophone) and Lina Allemano (trumpet) on half the album - logical choices if you consider the fruitful network between these players. Fraser is a mainstay of fellow Torontonian Allemano’s groups - the Lina Allemano Four and Titanium Riot. Davis and Laubrock have a rich shared history, working together on projects such as Laubrock’s Contemporary Chaos Practices, Davis’s Capricorn Climber, and Paradoxical Frog with Tyshawn Sorey. Whatever Fraser’s reasoning for inviting these two to the session, it was a brilliant decision.

Fraser clearly takes advantage of the additional voices in his writing. Perhaps the fact that he penned all three of the quintet pieces suggests that he had something in mind for the expanded roster. Fraser’s compositions play with counterpoint and juxtapose notation against freedom. The rollicking title track demonstrates these tactics, where different voices are employed in layering melody atop melody, or melody atop improvisation. Notably, composed elements contrast against free sections at different scales - like macro and microstructures within an improvised setting. “Wells Tower,” for example, is a swinging affair with horns playing in unison before the structure crumbles into rowdy group improvisation. Even as the quintet kicks aside their music stands, Fraser and Davis wittingly interject a swinging drive and familiar ostinato that gives a sense of cohesion even in the more rambunctious moments. The group blends the transitions between structure and freedom in such a way that it feels so natural and seamless (listen to the gradual construction in “Sketch 46” for proof). I suspect outstanding penmanship and musicianship are both due credit for this feat.

The trio pieces are equally rewarding listens. “Events,” written by Davis, is a blustering workout with a brief theme that gives way to a muscular free-for-all, ending in a slow-burning coda. “Charismatics,” credited to Malaby is a freewheeling event during which both Malaby and Davis interrupt the heated interplay with a quick staccato theme - more like a randomly recurring thought than an actual melody. The album closes with a brief improvisation which, after the preceding tracks, feels like a gentle sobering from the rush. Zoning is a thrilling listen that demonstrates how intelligent composition, combined with prodigious musicianship and individualism, can feel so wonderfully free.

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Musicians Of The Year 2012

By Stef  

We can argue a long time about the best albums of the year, or the most innovative ones, because nobody has listened to everything and tastes differ of course.

It's the same with the somewhat arbitrary list of "Musicians Of The Year", a list drawn up by myself, based on the quality and variety of the music presented by some artists this year.

Here is my list, with some explanations of why these musicians have outdone themselves, to the joy of their fan-base. Some of the luminaries of the British free improvisation scene demonstrate that creativity and open-mindedness do not dwindle with age, and then the younger generation with solid and upcoming talent. They all surprised me this year, and of course very positively.


The revelation of the year was French pianist Eve Risser, and that should be no surprise to readers of this blog, but I was personally also entranced by the new music direction that the British violinist Angharad Davies presented, as well as by Ingrid Laubrock's prolific participation on some of the most noteworthy albums of the year. I will start with the ladies, out of courtesy, but there is no ranking in this overview.

Eve Risser

For many of us she arose out of nowhere to bring one of the most acclaimed albums of the year, "En Corps" with Benjamin Duboc and Edward Perraud. It blew me to pieces the first time I listened to it, and it has kept doing that. It's not because I did not know her that this is her first album, quite to the contrary, and she released albums before with Polish bassist Rafal Mazur, or with bands like Donkey Monkey and Fenêtre Ovale.







Angharad Davies

British violinist Angharad Davies released two albums in the more minimalist genre but both of outstanding quality, "Outwash" with Tisha Mukarji and Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, and"Ist Gefallen In Den Schnee" with Skogen, and "Pluie Fine" with Cremaster Duo. Like Risser, Katherine Young, Mary Halvorson, Magda Mayas, Hannah Marshall and many more, she is among the most daring young female artists, with a clear and solid vision on what sound can sound like.

Ingrid Laubrock

Even she did not release any new material under her own name, 2012 also seems the absolute breakthrough of German saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, with "Union" by Paradoxical Frog, "Catatumbo" with Javier Carmona & Ollie Brice, "Haste" with Veryan Weston and Hannah Marschall, , "Camino Cielo Echo" with Tom Rainey and Mary Halvorson, and "Old Myth/New Science" by Living By Lanterns. Her way of playing the tenor is something else, something new, quite expressive and adventurous, unharmed by too much training, and it's this raw authenticity that makes her music appealing.




Barry Guy

From the classical "Tales Of Enchantment" with his partner Maya Homburger, the impressionistic miniatures on "Games And Improvisations" with Katharina Weber and Balts Nill, "Hexentrio" with Paul Plimley and Lucas Niggli, to the more extravert "Lava" with Liudas Mockunas, and the explosive "Metal" with The Thing, Barry Guy adds musical value in whatever genre or line-up he performs in. His playing is as precise as it is creative. And on top of this, he is also as part of Evan Parker's ElectroAcoustic Ensemble in the excellent "Hasselt". He also performed with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra on "Schweben - Ay, But Can Ye", and the album "One Four and Two Twos" brings us some older performances by John Stevens, Paul Rutherford and Evan Parker. In short, a prolific year for the British bass-player, but primarily with outstanding records.

Evan Parker

His fellow countryman and long-time musical partner Evan Parker also had an astonishing year in terms of quality and quantity of output, with no less than ten albums and we may have missed a few. His ElectroAcoustic Ensemble released one of the most innovative albums of the year with "Hasselt", he was the invited star on "Vivaces" by Grand Groupe Régional d'Improvisation Libérée, but he also shone in smaller ensembles, such as All Told's "Meetings with Remarkable Saxophonists" with John Edwards and Eddie Prévost, and the stellar "The Bleeding Edge" with Okkyung Lee and Peter Evans, "Live At The Vortex" with Foxes Fox, a fabulous duo with Agustí Fernández on "The Voice Is One", an equally stunning trio with John Coxon and Eddie Prévost on "Cinema", with George Graewe on "Dortmund Variations", on "Improcherto" with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, and then the release of older performances with John Stevens, Paul Rutherford and Barry Guy on "One Four and Two Twos", and the re-issue of "Supersession" with Barry Guy, Eddie Prévost and Keith Rowe, all of those still to be reviewed. He produes more albums than we have to review.


Nate Wooley

Nate Wooley has always been one of the stars on this blog, yet now again he is part of the best albums of the year, with RED Trio on "Stem", with Christian Weber and Paul Lytton on "Six Feet Under", his very adventurous solo albums "(8) Syllables",  "The Almond", then his collaboration with Bruno Duplant and Julien Héraud on "Movement & Immobility", and in a more traditional format on Harris Eisenstadt's "Canada Day III". Some absolutely fascinating recent work by him still needs some review on this blog, but they are in the pipeline :  "The Nows" with Paul Lytton, "Instrumentals" with Peter Evans, "From The Discrete To The Particular" with Joe Morris and Agusti Fernández, and on Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten's "NY Quartet". You have a number of musicians who are part of the scene, or who manage to create their own voice and carve out their own space in music, yet Nate Wooley is at the absolute center of it, shaping future style, contributing to music history and influencing lots of other musicians with his sometimes uncompromising approach ... like Barry Guy and Evan Parker. You can sometimes question what he's doing, but I guess that's what it means to be boundary-breaking.



A couple of other musicians also stand out, but because they were already among the "Musicians Of The Year" before on this blog, we will just mention them. The first is Martin Küchen who continued to deliver fantastic albums with Angles 8 "By Way Of Deception", on his solo album "Hellstorm", or with the Trespass Trio's "Bruder Beda". The first two of those albums figured on this blog's top-10 of the year, a major achievement.

The second worthy mention is for bassoonist Katherine Young, who also figured on our "Musician Of The Year" list before. She confirms her idiosyncratic approach to the instrument, and her search for new musical languages with "After Party - Releasing Bound Water From Green Material ", "Pretty Monsters",  and Verdure Into Onyx.

The third person is Wadada Leo Smith, less prolific, but with such superb quality that he's worth a mention again : "Ancestors" his duo album with Louis Moholo-Moholo, his unique "Ten Freedom Summers", and with again a totally different sound on "Dark Lady Of The Sonnets" with Min Xiao-Fen and Pheeroan AkLaff. 

Have I missed some musicians? Sure, truckloads of them. Yet I just wanted to select the ones really worth looking for. With the abundance of new material being produced, it's good to have some anchor points. Listen to the musicians mentioned above. They shape listening.

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Ralph Alessi, Kris Davis, Ingrid Laubrock & Tom Rainey - Lark (Skirl, 2014) ****½

By Filip 'Booka' Bukrshliev

Every album that ends with someone whistling a happy tune - it’s a good album. No matter what style, genre or quality, if you hear whistling at the end – Good Album. LARK ends with a whistle, and then some…

First of all, with this piece of music I prefer the mystery wrapped tightly around it. The thing is, I don’t have the liner-notes or any other information about this particular album. I don’t know when or where it’s recorded, I don’t know who wrote the music or if there is any music written beforehand, I don’t know in what way this is connected to the session for Obbligato (Intakt, 2014), if it's connected at all. In other words – I know nothing about this album, and that is a very good thing.  I will base this review on not knowing, discrediting the fact that every regular visitor on FreeJazzBlog, such as myself – has a little shrine at his/hers home for each of the musicians on LARK.

Kris Davis, Ingrid Laubrock, Tom Rainey, Ralph Alessi offer us a very intricate 60+ minutes on LARK, an album with a rarely seen need for attention. The not-knowing part comes in handy during the first listen, with the first mystery that unveils the question - is this completely improvised or some written material was brought by some of the musicians? I have spent like hours and days with that question. It is simply unreal how Ingrid / Ralph / Kris / Tom feed of each other ideas, how they complement each other movement, how they hold patiently till their time comes. This simply can not be improvised, or I’m listening to some very rare and genuine improvised mastery. The musicians in this quartet had played countless times together in different formations, many of them with composed material – but this doesn’t sound like it. I can't recognize anything that references Ingrid Laubrock's material, like last’s year Anti-House or Paradoxical Frog. Ralph Alessi, on this album is more like a gentler, more subtle version of Taylor Ho Bynum, bursting bright “bird” sounds all over the place, nothing with what you’ll connect him to Baida (ECM, 2014) or any recent release of his. Well, maybe the more open and brave parts of his This Against That formation, but that’s all you get.

The thing that bothers me the most is how melodic this album, even when they all play different things in the same time in a very small and confined space. Especially then, it's just too deeply melodic. Every time you point your ears to it, the music unveils some different layer, you catch some phrase and how that phrase leads to a new movement. All the way, this music kindly revards the listener with complex melodic subtleties that that are the most important clues that form the general picture. And it’s a never ending process with this album. You don’t get often music that has this amount of inspiration and depth. Take Tom Rainey for instance, no matter what the others are doing, he just grooves the hell out of it (certainly, not in the common sense of groove) and with his realy warm and nice sound, makes this music quite accessible. Not his usual thing, but man, he does it with such vigor.

Bottom line, for this to be composed and previously prepared, even in a completely democratic, almost utopian collaboration for the composing – they had a really tough job and a really hard time getting it done. That’s how good its sounds. The clarity of the language from all the four musicians and the narrative is just simply stunning. No matter what the nature is behind this release, improvised or composed, LARK is a pure thriller, a greatly told story. It unfolds right in front of the listener with an unparalleled graciousness.

At the very end I should point out that this is my second try for reviewing this. The first got scratched because it was a standard take on the review form. LARK does not need a standard review form. I just felt the need to show affection towards it, and I hope I managed to do that. Now you go and listen to it and whistle at the end.

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Eric Revis Trio - Crowded Solitudes (Clean Feed, 2016) ****

By Derek Stone

Eric Revis is an American bassist and composer who has been steadily building his oeuvre and expanding his reach (both musically and with regard to the players with whom he associates). In 2013, he released the excellent City of Asylum with Kris Davis on piano and the legendary Andrew Cyrille on drums. As a fan of Davis, particularly her work with Ingrid Laubrock and Tyshawn Sorey as Paradoxical Frog, I was immediately drawn to that album. Needless to say, it was a joy to hear, and it also held a few surprises, the biggest one being Eric Revis himself. He is an astoundingly adept bassist, moving from note to note with an elasticity and dynamism that aren’t easily matched. Together with Davis’s gorgeous abstractions and Cyrille’s sympathetic percussion-work, Revis’s bass made for a sumptuous sonic feast.

Now, the Trio is back, albeit with a different drummer. Instead of Cyrille, Gerald Cleaver is on the skins - and while it’s sad to see Cyrille go (his long association with Cecil Taylor make him a perfect fit for Kris Davis’s knotty clusters), that sadness quickly gives itself up to eager excitement; to anyone familiar with Cleaver’s work in the Farmers by Nature trio (with Craig Taborn and William Parker), Cleaver’s involvement on this record can only be a cause for celebration.

Straight away, the album opens with Revis’s probing, urgent bass - he glides along the strings, plucking with an infectious vigor. Within a few seconds, Davis and Cleaver join him, and we’re off to the races. As I said, Revis’s energy is infectious, so Davis is soon tumbling over herself, playing with a speed and suppleness that, while not uncharacteristic for her, are certainly never in so much abundance as they are here. Meanwhile, Cleaver rides the cymbals, in search of a rhythm steady enough to support the near-to-bursting paroxysms of his bandmates. It goes without saying that he succeeds!

After the equally-wild “Bontah,” the band reins it in a bit, and we get the lovely “Victoria.” It breezes by, Davis’s languid, romantic phrases combining with Revis’s pulsing bass and Cleaver’s sensitive brushwork to create a beautiful slice of melancholy.

“QB4R” shows the fantastic interplay between Cleaver and Revis: while Revis’s notes bubble up with all the effervescence of champagne, Cleaver acts as the bottle itself, giving shape to Revis’s ruminations and perfectly capturing their unresting vitality. The title track returns to the slower pace of “Victoria,” but imbues it with a sense of apprehension; this is perhaps due to Revis’s use of arco - Davis’s sparse piano-work is ghostly, but it is Revis that conjures up the most phantoms, bowing out wisps of sound that hang uneasily over the rest of the composition.

The longest piece here is the final one, “Anamnesis, Pt. 1 & Pt. 2 (For Tamir and Ms. Bland).” What is anamnesis, anyway? Well, the idea itself works on the assumption that humans have had many, many incarnations - anamnesis is the belief that knowledge (specifically, philosophical knowledge) has accreted in us through each incarnation, and the act of “learning” is simply the re-remembering of this knowledge. As to how this relates to the piece, I have no idea, but there is a genuine sense of movement, decay, and regeneration here. After the first section, a slow-spinning vortex of scattered notes and textures, the various streams coalesce and form a recognizable melody. It doesn’t take long, however, before the lazy river breaks up and becomes a series of rapids: Davis sends out pointillistic shards in every direction, while Revis throbs persistently underneath. Cleaver gives the piece a sense of subtle transformation and variation, moving between textures and rhythms with near-undetectable fluidity.

Crowded Solitudes is an exciting collection of music, and it shows each member of the trio at the height of their abilities. While it sometimes lacks the explosiveness that I admire in much of Kris Davis’s other work, it makes up for that with intriguing arrangements (thanks to Revis) and group interplay that highlights just what a modern piano trio is capable of.

Available at Downtown Music Gallery and Instant Jazz.

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Kris Davis - Capricorn Climber (Clean Feed, 2013) ***½

Reviewed by Joe

I remember reading Stef's enthusiastic review of Kris's Rye Eclipse. It's one of the great classics in the free-composed genre, an album more than worth checking out if you don't know it. Here she is again in large formation, something that really suits her great composing skills. Her group is made up of Mat Maneri, viola, Ingrid Laubrock, saxophone, Trevor Dunn, bass, Tom Rainey, drums and naturally Kris Davis, piano. It's a good combination that really gives her compositions a chance to breath and at the same time has a depth of sound. 

The opening notes of the album jump out at you making me think of King Crimson's David Cross pieces/period due to the violin's eerie presence. It's an atmosphere that pervades this album. Fine textures that develop within the group, 'spectral' would be a good term (if we were listening to contemporary classical music). The fine detail that the musicians put into the music is amazing not unlike a painting from the Flemish masters! "Too Tinkerbell"(tk1) the opening piece bravely settles into a group impro from the very start, yet underneath there is clearly a logic which only emerges after about 3 minutes. The wide open choice of notes that make up the theme give time a suspended feeling as if you're floating. This is a style that Kris Davis uses often, introducing notes into her pieces whilst the group improvises around her. A bass line that seems abstract suddenly becomes a melody, the drums seemingly flay around, yet they are a precise part of the melody to come, and so on.

It's nice to hear Ingrid Laubrock playing in a 'melodic' situation. Here she gets the chance to display her line playing to good advantage. Along with Matt Maneri's viola the two often complement each others improvisations to create some very delicate music. The rhythm section of Tom Rainey and Trevor Dunn give a fine performance also. The two players are able to give the impression of complete freedom whilst sneakily heading towards a common goal. Listening to these two players, combined with Kris Davis's piano you start to realise the complexity of some of the compositions. If a piece is rushed too much it would loose it's qualities and the rhythm section plays it just right. "Trevor's Luffa Complex"(tk3) is just such a piece. Starting with a bass solo the group gradually climbs on board until everything is in place, just in time before a strong theme explodes at the end.

Most of the pieces function in this way surprising the listener constantly. It's a style that makes for detailed listening over and over again. Details or structures that you hadn't grasped at first become clearer with each listen, as I already said it's like looking at a highly detailed painting - even Where's Wally for music! "Capricorn Climber"(tk4), "Pi is Irrational" (tk7) and "Dreamers in a Daze" (tk8) all have splendid improvised sections that build up over time, everyone is featured in there own fashion. At the same time the music is never clumsy or heavy handed.

If you enjoy listening to finely balanced music which can be both daring and beautiful then you'll probably find this a very rewarding album. If you don't know Kris Davis's work this may be as good a place to start as anywhere.

A sample of some of Kris's other albums (and collaborations) on the blog are:    
Gauci, Davis and Bisio
Rye Eclipse
Rainey, Laubrock and Davis
Paradoxical Frog
RIDD Quartet

Buy at Instantjazz.

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Tomasz Dabrowski & Tyshawn Sorey - Steps (ForTune, 2013) ****

By Stef

New York drummer Tyshawn Sorey is already a stylistic reference in modern drumming, with a discography of five albums, the latest one "Union" by Paradoxical Frog, with Kris Davis and Ingrid Laubrock, despite his young age, and we find him now in the company of Polish trumpeter Tomasz Dabrowki, known from Hunger Pangs with "Meet Meat" and from his own Tom Trio, both recently reviewed here, as talented and even younger than the drummer.

Both met a clinic that Sorey gave in Poland, and they decided to perform this fascinating duo performance, a format that is not only one of my favorites (see the "trumpet-drums" label in the right column), but also one that finds appeal among the young generation of Polish musicians (Artur Majewski and Kuba Suchar, Wojtek Jachna and Jacek Buhl, Kamil Szuszkiewicz & Hubert Zemler) amazingly enough, and of course also with the grandmasters of trumpet and drums improvisation: Bill Dixon and Tony Oxley, Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell, Wadada Leo Smith and Blackwell/DeJohnette/Sommers/Rudolph, Lester Bowie and Philip Wilson .

To the music now : both musicians treat their instruments in the traditional way : no electronics, no extended techniques, just plain playing, and which is good because both musicians are quite refined stylists, lovers of clear sounds which bounce and dance around each other. All tracks are called "Songs", which testifies of the compact lyricism of the compositions and the playing. A single idea, a tune, a mood, a rhythm to play with, to expand on, to interact on, and then on to the next tune. Simplicity and musical joy are at the core of this album. The moods can be solemn, playful or even jubilant, and the total is a coherent treat of raw sophistication, intimate and sensitive.

Highly recommended for fans of the format.

 

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A couple solo piano discs: Kris Davis and Myra Melford

In the spirit of the recent set of piano related reviews, Troy Dostert digs deeper into Kris Davis' and Myra Melford's recent solo efforts.

By Troy Dostert

Here we have two outstanding contemporary pianists, each with a distinctive vision.  Of the two, Myra Melford is the veteran, having been around since the mid-80s, and recording with her own groups since the early 1990s.  Her Alive in the House of Saints (HatHut, 1993) remains, in this reviewer’s opinion, one of the finest live piano trio recordings of the last few decades, a masterful record that manages to be sublimely lyrical, technically dazzling, and irresistibly accessible, with a dynamic groove established by Lindsey Horner (bass) and Reggie Nicholson (drums) that works perfectly with Melford’s compositional approach.  

Kris Davis is the (relative) newcomer, although the list of noteworthy recordings she’s released over the last few years is impressive, many of which have been reviewed on this blog.  (Listen to her Paradoxical Frog release, Union, with Tyshawn Sorey and Ingrid Laubrock, for an especially strong glimpse of what she brings to the table).

Both players are highly adventurous in their own way, with Melford generally choosing a more melodic approach to her compositions, although not without freer moments of abstraction and dissonance.  Davis, on the other hand, is in some respects the more challenging composer, with pieces that are alternately dense, complex, and minimalist, sometimes all within the same piece.  She is certainly the less accessible of the two pianists, but the rewards of persisting with her music are substantial.  Okay, so much for the preliminaries: let’s get to the records at hand!

Kris Davis – Massive Threads (Thirsty Ear, 2013) ****

Davis’s playing on this record is especially intriguing for the diversity of styles it showcases.  The first cut, “Ten Exorcists,” is a stunning and captivating track, which relies for much of its seven or so minutes on just one or two notes, struck rapidly in a minimalist technique that Davis then gradually develops into more complex passages, all while keeping the simple tonal center at the core of the improvisation, and with independent ideas explored with each hand.  From the very start, Davis is letting the listener know that this isn’t going to be an “easy” record; it’s going to challenge and confront, rather than drawing in, her audience.  But the brilliance of her technique on this track signals that there will definitely be some memorable moments in the process.

With the second track, “Desolation and Despair,” Davis shifts gears radically, going to a much more spartan musical vision, getting the most musical value possible from just a few notes, using space and silence to great effect, and as the title of the piece suggests, it’s a haunting and bleak musical statement.

The centerpiece of the record is really the fourth track, “Massive Threads”: it’s the longest of the eight tracks, at over 10 minutes, and it perfectly illustrates the way in which Davis embodies a technically sophisticated but austere, demanding approach to her instrument.  It’s also another example of Davis’ astonishing ability to develop separate ideas with both hands simultaneously, as she does at the opening of the track.  Then, as the piece develops, Davis gravitates toward the lower end of the piano, using progressively stronger and weightier chords, eventually building to a powerful two-handed workout in the bass register.  It’s almost overwhelming: relentless, and pummeling (“massive” threads indeed!), until finally retreating a bit, giving the listener some mercy, as she explores a lighter theme before going back to more tension and power with driving chords in the bass register and then, finally, diminishing, with a few spare interjections at the upper end of the keyboard to bring things to a close.

The rest of the tracks are similarly distinctive and imaginative; Davis has clearly planned this record carefully, offering unique statements with each track.  And each track is well-named also: yes, the fifth track, “Dancing Marlins,” really does remind one of spry, exuberant fish, full of life and surprise!  And there’s even a great Monk cover (“Evidence”).  True to form, Davis develops it in a careful but abstract manner.  Although it takes a while for the tune’s melody to come into focus, it does emerge, and Davis displays her distinctive voice wonderfully as it unfolds.

It’s a fine recording, and especially strong in revealing Davis as a terrific improviser and one whose compositional approach is both forceful and intriguing.  If I had to offer a quibble with it, I’d say that at times Davis’s concept strikes me as a bit cold and severe.  While I’m certainly not averse to being challenged in my musical explorations, I did at times struggle to find an emotional core in the music that would allow me to enjoy it on a less cerebral level.  Davis does what she does really well; but this might not be a record I’ll come back to listen to as often as others that have left a stronger emotional impact on me.

Myra Melford – Life Carries Me This Way (Firehouse 12, 2013) ****

Just as Davis’s opening track on her record signaled what was to come, Melford’s “Park Mechanics” will sound familiar to those who know her music: it’s animated by a jaunty, rhythmically buoyant ostinato, with a strong melodic feel.  Melford’s ability to get the toes tapping is evident on a number of cuts; “Attic,” the sixth track, offers a rather funky flavor at points, even while the tune at its core is rhythmically complex.  There’s a subtle blues voice that colors a lot of Melford’s playing; this is the more “jazz”-oriented of the two records, without a doubt.

With eleven tracks to work with, Melford doesn’t offer any marathon-length performances, but there’s a lot of stylistic variety, especially on the first half or so of the record.  I hear some Keith Jarrett influence on “Red Land,” with another compelling left-hand use of ostinato, with ringing chords in the right hand; and Melford’s oft-cited debt to Cecil Taylor is apparent on “Piano Music,” where her technical skill with percussive flourishes and powerful note clusters is truly attention-grabbing.  In addition to the more up-tempo tracks, where Melford is often at her best, she also has a way with more reflective pieces, as on “Red Beach” the second track.  It’s a ruminative, melancholy statement, with a somber but also uplifting delicate melody she explores as the piece develops.

It’s an excellent recording overall, although the last half of the record does meander a bit; Melford’s compositions were somewhat less successful on the final few tracks, and they lacked the more convincing sense of purpose established earlier in the record.  The last track, “Still Life,” offers a charming little tune, but it wasn’t quite enough to rescue the more lackluster tracks that preceded it.

For fans of solo piano records, both of these recordings are definitely worth checking out.  While Davis’s is the more imposing record, it’s got a lot to offer; and although Melford is just as technically brilliant, she is a bit more willing to let loose and dance from time to time.

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Ingrid Laubrock's Anti House - Strong Place (2013) ****

By Paul Acquaro

Recently, I had the luck to catch a duo show of Mary Halvorson and Ingrid Laubrock at the intimate JACKArts space in Brooklyn. I was struck by how well their melodic ideas and abstract inclinations played off each other so well. I assume that their various associations, like their work with the Tom Rainey Trio, has helped them develop these tacit connections. The same probably could be said about Laubrock's work with pianist Kris Davis, from their trio work with Paradoxical Frog which has produced some excellent recordings as well.

Now, add in the powerful but subtle percussion of Tom Rainey and the assured bass playing of John Hébert (a member of Halvorson's Trio), and as you probably have already guessed, we end up with a brilliant combination of Laubrock's many associations, each one bringing creative and edgy playing to a strong set of compositions.

Indeed, Laubrock's compositional skill is the linchpin of 'Anti-House'. Her songs carry strong melodic stamps even as they veer far from the expected. Songs like 'Count 'em (for Richard Forman)' juxtapose catchy lyrical snippets with unexpected rhythms and textures, but still allowing each musician to poke through the relaxed atmosphere. The following 'From Farm Girl to Fabulous, Vol 1.' has a cheeky title and music that begins free, atonal and rhythmically unkept, but begins picking up a more strident rhythmic base courtesy of some single note motifs from Davis' piano -- the tune even get a bit rocky as it unfolds.

Anti-House, to my ears, is a little less aggressive than some of the other avant-jazz combinations that the various members are in but it is no less energetic and powerful. I offer 'Alley Zen' as an example. Rhythmic piano figures like something from a Nik Bärtsch modul spiral below accentuated phrases from Halvorson's crisp guitar. This same type of interaction also works beautifully between everyone in 'Cup in a Teastorm (for Henry Threadgill)', where a Hébert, Davis and Rainey trio sustains the song for an extended sequence.

Accessible and abstract it works quite well and I am enjoying repeated listenings to Strong Place immensely. It is a strong statement of Laubrock as a composer and leader of a choice quintet.

Available at Instantjazz.

© stef

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Lisa Ullén Quartet - Borderlands (Disorder, 2016) ****½

By Derek Stone 

Many of this blog’s readers are probably familiar with the album Carve, performed by Lisa Ullén and Nina de Heney. It has been perched in the “Popular Posts” section for quite some time (and the review can be read here).

On that recording, the possibilities of the piano-bass duo are thoroughly explored - each piece is a sculpture of sorts, some marblesque, with rounded edges and smoky contours; others, jagged and barbed, with unexpected turns and bristling textures. Despite the success of that record (and its equally incredible follow-up), it needn’t be assumed that Ullén is only concerned with minimal sound-experiments. She has also invested a great deal of time into her Quartet, with Mats Äleklint on trombone, Nils Ölmedal on double bass, and Andreas Axelsson on drums. Their last album (the wonderfully-titled Revolution Rock) was released seven years ago, which means that the individual members have had plenty of time to hone their skills and explore fresh terrain and, indeed, that’s what they’ve done. Revolution Rock was not a conservative record, by any means - it had complex and intricate playing, labyrinthine shifts-in-direction, and dazzling exchanges between the musicians. Borderlands has all of that in droves, but it also integrates some of the elements of sound-sculpting that Ullén has been engaged in for the last few years. Thus, it updates all of the best parts of the Quartet, while also allowing them to progress in new and interesting ways.

The first track, “Sisters, Brothers, Here’s Another,” starts with rumbling clusters of notes from Ullén, an elastic rhythm section, and trombonist Mats Äleklint’s idiosyncratic honks. From this first piece, it’s evident that Äleklint will be integral to the Quartet’s revised sound; he has an irresistibly original style, moving ably from buzzing groans to terse clucks to mellifluous streams. Ullén’s playing has also become more elliptical, and there’s been a definite refinement of the sound-sculpting techniques she explored during her time with Nina de Heney. Take “Waiting Room,” for example: accompanied by Äleklint’s laconic squeaks and squawks, she offers only tense clusters from the low registers and fragments and splinters from the high, all while the rhythm section billows airily below. Meanwhile, lilting electronic tones oscillate throughout, approximating the soft hums of medical equipment that one might expect to hear in a real waiting room: anxiety interlaced with the tranquilizing repetition of machines. “Now What” is equally oblique, but it’s driven by Andreas Axelsson’s more assertive percussion-work. Next, “Midnight Conversation” finds bassist Nils Ölmedal pairing up with Äleklint for a brief and enigmatic duet. Here, Äleklint mostly sticks to a straight-ahead style of playing, but it makes for a nice respite.

That track transitions nicely into “Room Full of Tunes,” which is piano-bar jazz that has been reimagined, reconstructed, and injected with a kind of lyrical ambiguity. It starts in a fairly conventional manner, but quickly becomes a swirling dreamscape; Ullén’s Quartet stuns me with its ability to leap from near-orthodox melodicism to weird, textural experimentation, often in the space of a minute or two.

The final piece, “Won’t Be Late Again,” sees Ullén going “all-in,” so to speak, with convoluted runs and percussive rolls. Midway through, time is given for Nils Ölmedal to offer a sumptuous solo, and the piece then shifts back to Ullén’s dazzling pyrotechnics.

The approach of the Lisa Ullén Quartet is not a direct one; it doesn’t divulge much in the way of easy melodies, but it’s incredibly intriguing and rewarding for the patient listener. Also, I urge listeners to take some time with this thing; at first, I was perplexed and a little disinterested. After spending the better part of a week with it, however, I was genuinely enthralled and found myself actively craving it! Highly recommended to fans of Lisa Ullén’s previous work, as well as to those who enjoy the various projects of Kris Davis: Paradoxical Frog, Infrasound, etc.

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Kris Davis - Duopoly (Pyroclastic Records, 2016) ****

By Lee Rice Epstein

Kris Davis has pulled off a massive trick with Duolopy, cleverly blowing up the duo setting and reassembling the pieces into a thrilling collage. Davis, who has been praised several times on the blog (a sample: her trio, her quintet, her octet Infrasound, and her improvising trio with Ingrid Laubrock and Tyshawn Sorey, Paradoxical Frog), appears to have entered a period of tremendous creativity. For Duopoly, she takes the fairly standard piano duet and places it into 4 instrumental pairings (piano plus guitar, piano, drums, and reeds), divides those into 8 separate duos (Bill Frisell and Julian Lage, Craig Taborn and Angelica Sanchez, Billy Drummond and Marcus Gilmore, and Tim Berne and Don Byron), then duplicates each duo to create an additional 8 free improvisations. The pairings and sequencing pretty much need to be exactly right for the album to work, and I’m happy to report they work exceedingly well.

A great deal has been made of Davis and Taborn’s collaboration on Davis’s original, “Fox Fire.” And their pairing is indeed magical—sadly, I missed seeing them perform here in LA earlier this year, but I’ve heard their live performances are incredible (see below for video from this fall’s tour). But I haven’t seen as much written about Davis and Sanchez, who present a slightly thornier duet on Sanchez’s “Beneath the Leaves.” It’s a marked contrast to Davis and Taborn’s playing, and both performances serve to highlight the strengths in the other. Not surprisingly, both pianists duets with Davis got me thinking about a Taborn-Sanchez duo. Each has such a singular approach to the piano, and Davis successfully bridges the performances by drawing on Taborn and Sanchez’s tenderness and technique in equal measure.

It’s interesting to have Berne and Byron paired as the reed players for this outing. Again, Berne’s initial duet, on Davis’s “Trip Dance for Tim,” is a lovely dance between the two. And Byron’s clarinet on “Prelude to a Kiss” is dazzling. The four tracks that form this center turning point, the previous two plus Davis’s improvised duets with Byron and Berne, are quite possibly the highlight of an album stuffed with highlights. Berne’s plays a bright, keening solo during the improvisation, steering Davis to a pounding finish that echoes to a silence, which gradually builds back up to full volume in Davis and Gilmore’s improv.

Just one more pairing I want to highlight: Davis and Frisell. As I alluded to in my review of Andrew Cyrille’s quartet album, Frisell is back in a big way. His playing on these two albums is some of his best in a long time, and credit to Davis for the collaboration and inspiring some lovely playing from him. Their closing duet opens with some airy chords from both, sustained notes weaving together to create a textured backdrop. It’s a thoughtful closing statement and a bit of a tease, at barely three minutes, as the album glides to its finish on a gentle, quick fade.

When I first saw the lineup, there were surprises aplenty. Where I had expected to see Laubrock, Rainey, Halvorson, Alessi, and others, ultimately Davis paired herself with musicians she hadn’t yet recorded with. Instead of revisiting collaborations I’d come to appreciate, a deep well of possibilities opens up on Duopoly, and although I haven’t read anything to indicate more may be coming, I already have a personal wish list of unique pairings I’d love to hear on future volumes.

Kris Davis and Craig Taborn live at The Kennedy Center, October 3, 2016:

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End-of-year Lists Galore

Allright, here they are then, the albums of the year 2012 as selected by the entire review team of the Free Jazz Collective. Each reviewer presented his (unfortunately not her) list of the ten best albums of the year. Based on the commonalities between those lists, we selected the top-10 that we all favoured.

The Free Jazz Collective Top-10 albums of 2012

1. Eve Risser, Benjamin Duboc & Edward Perraud - En Corps
2. Angles 8 - By Way Of Deception
3. The Thing With Barry Guy - Metal!
4. Aram Shelton Quartet - Everything for Somebody
5. Henry Threadgill Zooid – Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp
6. Nicole Mitchell - Arc Of O
7. Mary Halvorson Quintet - Bending Bridges
8. Martin Küchen - Hellstorm
9. Levity - Afternoon Delights
10. Stian Westerhus - The Matriarch & The Wrong Kind Of Flower

Every contributor to the blog also made his own list of preferred albums.

Denti Alligator

1.             Eve Risser, Benjamin Duboc & Edward Perraud - En Corps

2.             Aaron Novik - Secret of Secrets

3.             Neneh Cherry & The Thing -  The Cherry Thing

4.             Bester Quartet -  Metamorphoses

5.             Charles Gayle - Streets

6.             Keith Rowe -  September

7.             Mats Gustafsson - Bengt

8.             David Krakauer -  Pruflas -  The Book of Angels Volume 18

9.             King Tears Bat Trip -  King Tears Bat Trip

10.          The Thing With Barry Guy -  Metal!

Paul Acquaro

1.             Mary Halvorson Quintet - Bending Bridges

2.             Elliot Sharp Trio - Aggregat

3.             9 Volt - Open Circuit

4.             Elephant9 with Reine Fiske - Atlantis

5.             Joe Morris, William Parker, Gerald Cleaver - Altitude

6.             Paul Dunmall & Tony Bianco - Thank You To John Coltrane

7.             Eivind Opsvik - Overseas IV

8.             Aych - As the Crow Flies

9.             Scorch Trio with Mars Williams - Made in Norway

10.          Tim Berne - Snake Oil

Tom Burris

1.             Eve Risser, Benjamin Duboc & Edward Perraud – En Corps 

2.             Nicole Mitchell – Arc of O 

3.             Jooklo Duo & Bill Nace – Scratch 

4.             Mary Halvorson Quintet - Bending Bridges 

5.             Henry Threadgill Zooid – Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp 

6.             Rob Mazurek Pulsar Quartet – Stellar Pulsations 

7.             Sam Rivers, Dave Holland & Barry Altschul – Reunion: Live in New York 

8.             Hairy Bones – Snakelust 

9.             Noah Bernstein – Six 

10.          Ballister – Mechanisms 

Daniel Sorrelis

1.             Eve Risser, Benjamin Duboc & Edward Perraud - En Corps

2.             Eli Keszler - Catching Net

3.             Angles 8 - By Way of Deception: Live in Ljubjana

4.             Angharad Davies, Tisha Mukarji, Dimitria Lazaridou-Chatzigoga - Outwash

5.             Pedro Sousa & Hernâni Faustino - Falaise

6.             Martin Küchen - Hellstorm

7.             Way Out Northwest - The White Spot

8.             Mikołaj Trzaska, Ollie Brice, Mark Sanders - Riverloam Trio

9.             John Tilbury - For Tomasz Sikorski

10.          Henry Threadgill Zooid - Tomorrow Sunny/The Revelry, Spp.

Phil Coombs

1.             Angles 8 - By Way of Deception - Live in Ljubljana

2.             Nicole Mitchell - Arc of O

3.             Steve Lehman Trio - Dialect Fluorescent

4.             Daniel Erdmann - How to Catch a Cloud

5.             MMM Quartet - Live at Metz' Arsenal

6.             Emile Parisien - Chien Guepe

7.             Aram Shelton Quartet - Everything for Somebody

8.             Matthew Shipp Trio - Elastic Aspects

9.             Max Johnson Quartet

10.          Eve Risser - En Corps

Joe Higham

1.             John Butcher and Toshimaru Nakamura - Dusted Machinery

2.             Levity - Afternoon Delights

3.             Aram Shelton Quartet - Everything for Somebody

4.             Daniel Erdmann - How to Catch a Cloud

5.             Marc Ducret - Tower Vol. 4

6.             Eve Risser - En Corps

7.             Outhouse - Straw, Sticks + Bricks.

8.             Arts and Sciences - New You

9.             Kay Grant & Alex Ward - Fast Talk

10.          Fred Lonberg-Holm's Fast Citizens - Gather

Paolo Casertano

1.             Stian Westerhus - The Matriarch And The Wrong Kind Of Flowers

2.             Joe McPhee & Eli Keszler - Ithaca

3.             Nate Wooley/Peter Evans - Instrumental Vol. 1

4.             Colin Stetson & Mats Gustafsson - Stones

5.             The Thing with Barry Guy - Metal

6.             Steve Lehman Trio - Dialect Fluorescent 

7.             Martin Küchen - Hellstorm

8.             Peter Kolovos - Black Colors

9.             Paradoxical Frog - Union

10.          John Tilbury - For Tomasz Sikorski

Ananth Krishnan

1.             Thomas Heberer – Cookbook

2.             Angles 8 - By Way of Deception: Live in Ljubjana

3.             Levity - Afternoon Delights

4.             Trespass Trio - Bruder Beda

5.             Maya Homburger and Barry Guy - Tales of Enchantment

Stef Gijssels

1.             Eve Risser, Benjamin Duboc & Edward Perraud – En Corps

2.             RED Trio + Nate Wooley - Stem

3.             Mikołaj Trzaska Ircha Clarinet Quartet* ‎– Zikaron - Lefanay

4.             Thomas Heberer's Clarino - Cookbook (Red Toucan, 2012)

5.             Mathias Küchen - Hellstorm

6.             Wadada Leo Smith - Ten Freedom Summers

7.             Skogen - Ist Gefallen In Den Schnee

8.             Angles 8 - By Way of Deception: Live in Ljubjana

9.             Pretty Monsters

10.          Dark Poetry

Martin Schray

1.       Fire! - In the Mouth a Hand

2.       Peter Brötzmann's Chicago Tentet+1 - Walk, Sleep, Love

3.       Evan Parker's Electro Acoustic Ensemble -  Hasselt

4.       Stian Westerhus -  The Matriarch and the Wrong Kind of Flowers

5.       Hairy Bones - Snakelust

6.       Martin Küchen - Hellstorm

7.       Mats Gustafsson/Thurston Moore -  Play Some Fucking Stooges

8.       Colin Stetson/Mats Gustafsson - Stones

9.       Pao -  Pao

10.    Arts and Science  New You

.... and by the way, you can still vote for the HAPPY NEW EARS AWARD  for the most innovative listening experience of the year.

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