Karl Bjorå Trio - The Essence (Sonic Transmissions, 2025)

By Brian Earley

 The whimsical asides and tumbling surprises of Karl Bjora and his trio on The Essence, his latest 2025 release for Sonic Transmissions Records, delightfully plays with listener expectations. A tune, for example, that opens with an acoustic bass solo may soon become more video game soundtrack than jazz guitar trio. An established moderate tempo may pivot laughably to Keystone Cops by song’s end. Ticklingly silly plucked guitar strings open swiftly to a soundscape as wide as the dawn.

Without knowing Bjora’s discography, then, what would come as the craziest surprise of all is his deep connection to composition. However, the guitarist has built a career, albeit short (he was born in 1991), working in ensembles using compositions that are so much fun to listen to they hardly feel complex at root, though painstakingly complicated they are. Just listen, for example, to Signe Emmeluth’s Spacemusic Ensemble, or to his own rich compositions on 2021’s Whimsical Giant.

For this date, Bjora has assembled fellow Norwegian Ole Mofjell on drums and Norway born and Texas transplant polymath Ingebrigt Haker Flaten as the man with the bass. The trio works, or rather plays, seamlessly, as though successful navigation through these snaking songs were inevitable. Joy glows immediately from the album’s opener, “Consider Yourself Encouraged.” After laughing at the dry irony of the song’s title, one hears Bjora and company cruising swiftly out of the gate. “FOMO” is Wes Montgomery laughing in a child’s toy sailboat as it bounces on ripples and tumbles over waterfalls until the composition opens to broad and deep waters of a soundscape so beautiful I almost cried listening to it for the first time.

If there is a storm in “Maelstrom,” the date’s third piece, it is the electronic surprises the song has in store for its listeners. The trinkling of “Smokes” leads to the album’s closer and title track, “The Essence,” which encounters listeners with layered polyrhythms as it fights its way upstream to the silence that remains as the collection ends and the listener stands on shore again now encouraged to play with sandcastles and children’s toy buckets rather than contemplate the meaning of life at sunset.

None of this is to say this isn’t serious music. It is powerful and deeply moving at times, but the trio performs with such freedom within Bjora’s structures that the whole journey feels like a game to them. And what power it is to help others know the essence of wisdom is finding the humor in the maelstrom.

Read More

Sakina Abdou & Daunik Lazro

For the 25th anniversary of her radio program "A l'improviste" on public service station France Musique, Anne Montaron invited musicians to perform at Carreau du Temple in Paris on November 17. The players included Yuko Oshima/Olivier Lété, Alexandra Grimal/Christiane Bopp/Benjamin Duboc, solos by Joëlle Léandre and Michael Nick, a quintet of students and an inter-generational tenor saxophone duo of Sakina Abdou & Daunik Lazro. The idea stemmed from Lazro having expressed his admiration for the younger player. A video was made of the 20 minute encounter.

The full program is available to listen on replay.

Read More

سماع [Ahmed] - [Sama'a] (Audition) (Otoroku, 2025)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

Ahmed, with their new double LP, made it on my top two for another year. That’s certainly the least important thing, fact or whatever that you will read in the following words. The quartet, consisting of the same line-up over a decade now, defies firstly categorization and, secondly, the short-lived nature of groupings and collectives around improvisational music.

But should Ahmed be labeled or tagged under improvisation? I think not. Not because their music lacks the magic of this practice. Not at all. It’s probably (and I want to use this word a lot as many elements of their music lie in grey zones that, many times, are difficult to pin down or, even, identify) because what they try to achieve is far more interesting, intriguing and difficult.

And what that is exactly? Well, here is another grey zone, while I’m entangled by my own subjectivity and fondness of their music – all at the same time. I liked Ahmed’s music right from the start, I’m proud to say that I have been a champion of their music from the very beginning. Apart from being proud, I’m happy because I see (or feel, it seems more fitting) that the vision of four individuals, that is four musicians, can still infiltrate into a collective summary.The music of Ahmed. And that is, certainly, not an easy task. As someone who finds it hard and difficult to share his image and hope for this world, I must (we all must) acknowledge those who struggle, share, and succeed to present their image as a collective force and exchange of ideas. Those people are, among of the few as the trajectory of modern societies moves rapidly into creating solitary beings, the four musicians, from all over Europe, that construct the music of Ahmed.

Someone would comment that Ahmed’s music is not new by definition. Yes, the easy answer would be that it is a re-working of Ahmed Abdul Malik’s music. This preoccupation with “newness” and all this faux progress is what modern capitalism is selling us in order to keep us happy, while the planet is collapsing. Some, rhetorical maybe, questions about the aforementioned thought: how can someone distinguish between old and new? Is anything really new, so, per se, totally freed from the past? Should, anything, be totally freed from the past? Is the present and, subsequently, the future a continuation of the past? Is it better? And what “better” exactly is? I could go on like this, as those questions are at the core of this reviewer’s thoughts (and so is Ahmed’s music, ha!), but you get the idea I believe.

Where Ahmed’s music stands in all this? Well, if you ask me (or listen to the music and its ideas and decide on your own) it doesn’t answer any of the above in particular and it does, very passionately, at the same time. Malik’s music, any music of importance, comes from the past and continues into the future. The present is the medium, the place where the two (past, future) collide. But they are not for sale; they have nothing to do with the mythology of the great past, or the capitalistic orthodoxy of the optimistic, “better”, “progressive” future.

Ahmed’s music is totally into the three dimensions (past, present, future) because it is uncontrollably avoiding time categories. So, in a way, it is so against the amenities of the society of the spectacle (capitalism, again, that is) where everything is defined so to be tagged with a price. It is also aggressive, passionate, full of energy, maybe a little bit free jazz, also consisting of fragments of collective improvisation. Drums, double bass, alto sax and a piano.

Not that it matters to you dear reader, but I surpassed the five hundred word limit that I have on my writings for this site. The only reason for this, is that Ahmed’s music is important. A rare occasion, idea and feeling indeed.

Listen:

@koultouranafigo

Read More

Tomas Fujiwara - Dream Up (Out of Your Head Records 2025) *****

By Gary Chapin

I went through a phase, decades ago, when I had a deep fascination with like-instrument groupings. The World Sax Quartet, the Clarinet Summit, Rasputina, the League of Crafty Guitarists, ROVA, et many cetera. Among these was Max Roach’s M’boom , a septet that set expectations for jazz percussion ensembles. They included trap sets AND every other thing you can imagine that makes a pleasing sound when you hit it. Part of M’boom’s charm was its outre quality, but part was its connections to traditions from the Caribbean and other places. (The Balafon Marimba Ensemble was a rabbit hole that I well and truly went down.)

All to say there is solid ground in my mind for Thomas Fujiwara’s Percussion Quartet to build from and excel upon—not to mention his own long experiences and collaborations, such as the brilliant Pith (reviewed here). Let’s thank whatever stars (or granting organizations) had to align for Roulette to commission this work.

I’m tempted to just say “there are a lot of drums!” But quantity, in this case, has a quality all its own. Fujiwara does “drums and compositions;” while Tim Keiper comes with “donso ngoni, kamale ngoni, calabash, temple blocks, timbale, djembe, castanets, balafon, found objects, and other percussion.” Kaoru Watanabe wields “o-jimedaiko, uchiwadaiko, shimedaiko, and shinobue.” Patricia Brennan brings her sublime vibes to the mix.

You can hear Brennan shimmer in the opening piece, a haunting reflective number that leans into the disquieting, intentional imperfection of the vibe’s timbre. From this beginning we are reminded that the usual rules don’t apply, that slow-slow and fast-fast can play in the same space together, and that the absence of melodic information from many of these instruments (though there are also many pitched percussion) leaves an opening for other types of information.

One of those types of info would be the ritualistic, spiritual, and uncanny. “Mobilize,” for example, brings to mind New Orleans parade beats, but also the Dr. John voodoo vibe of Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya-Ya(“dance ka-lin-da-ba-doom!”), and “Blue Pickup” comes at us with a martial urgency. Prayer, war, and mating are the most ritualized activities of the human creature, and all have historically required the services of the drummer in order to achieve transcendence—for good or ill.

As the record progresses, Fujiwara uses the drums and their possibilities, stacking up little instruments and large—and again, Brennan’s vibes—in ways that feel impossibly complex but also inevitable. It’s the sort of paradox one expects of a great composer—it’s kinda their job—and the inclusion of rock solid improvisers adds generative chaos to the mix. Dream Up is an extraordinary act of emergence. It’s like water. Neither oxygen nor hydrogen are wet, but bring them together and they sustain all life on the planet. Dream Up’s quality of sustaining—life? soul? spirit? joy?--is equally a function of the quality that arises between the individual percussionists. Five stars.

Read More

Album of the Year 2025

To kick off the New Year, we are happy to announce the Free Jazz Collective's top album of 2025. Last week, we presented our collective top recordings, drawn from the top 10 lists of participating Free Jazz Collective reviewers and then held an internal vote for the top album of the year.

And the results are ... 

#1, Anna Högberg Attack - Ensammseglaren (Fonstret)

After a brief public hiatus from music, in which our 2025 top album winner Anna Högberg worked as a nurse and on her music, the Swedish saxophonist is back with her group, albeit with a refreshed line-up and a bunch of new ideas. Ensammseglaren is a moody masterpiece, steeped in the mourning of her father's passing, Högberg digs deep. Here is what Ferruccio Martinotti writes:

Heavy clouds are incumbent, waters are grey, rotten seaweed all over, the air smells of storm: haunted atmosphere, shows the picture; amazing, jaw dropping sounds, shows the Attack. The distorted, infectious drone guitars, the atonal piano interventions don’t leave any doubt, the boat is at the mercy of the streams, peace turning into chaos and the other way around, a very few and foggy landmarks. But when the band unfolds all the sails and set a large ensemble route, even delivering almost fanfare-esque texture, here it really seems that such a collective dimension could be powerfully helpful to ease the mourning: not yet a flat sea, still some malevolent, sinister waves but the navigation became more secure and some rays of sun is now able to pierce the leaden sky.

Read the full review here.

#2, Wadada Leo Smith & Sylvie Courvoisier - Angel Falls (Intakt Records) 

Coming in second place in our vote is the excellent duo recording from trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and pianist Sylvie Courvoisier. It is such a stuning album that we had not one but three reviews of it! Writer Don Phipps describes it well:

Dissonance. Abstraction. Tonal clusters. Flurries. Rolling ostinatos. Ornate and defiant piercings. These are some of the various musical elements of Angel Falls, a striking masterpiece of space and sound generated by two of the best – the legendary Mississippi-born Wadada Leo Smith on trumpet (now 83) and the always fascinating Swiss pianist Sylvie Courvoisier. The duo draws on a range of influences and idioms to construct their tone poems. From the formal classical side, one can hear degrees of impressionism, Messiaen abstractions, and Charles Ives. Then there are bouncy, jagged blues passages (the ending of “Naomi’s Peak”) and of course plenty of improvisatory and experimental jazz.

Check out what Don, Stef and Ferruccio said about the album.

#3, Rodrigo Amado The Bridge - Further Beyond (Trost) 

In 2023 the top spot went to saxophonist Rodrigo Amado for his recording with his then new quartet "The Bridge." Beyond the Margins captured the collective's ears then and now, two years later, a second recording from the group has again hit the spot...

 Eyal Hareuveni, in his review, writes:

The quartet itself is a collective platform for creating free music that has a rare, ever-expanding, and uplifting spiritual power, with a rich perspective of the past and the present, bound in tradition while breaking free of it.  

Read the rest here.

 --- 

And so now entering 2026 ... it’s clear that the 2020s remain as unsettled as when they began, but the music we’ve been hearing—and the releases coming soon—suggest that the creative music community is still strong, inventive, and ready to find new sounds. As always, "a big hand" to our readers, writers, and, of course, all the musicians, for your engagement and your trust. You all are the reason we keep talking about the music that matters so much.

Thank you from us at the Free Jazz Collective!

Read More

Zeena Parkins, Cecilia Lopez - Red Shifts (Relative Pitch Records, 2025)

By Ferruccio Martinotti

Don’t know you, but for us harp always meant Her Majesty Alice Coltrane first, then Dorothy Ashby and basically the topic was done. The Forum as well doesn’t push you to drill any further. Ah, yes, we saw a couple of years ago Shabaka playing with no less than two harps (!) and by mere chance our ears caught fragments of the likes of Brandee Younger and Alina Bzhezhinska. Anyway, in all the examples as above, harp sounded like harp. 

Q: “How the hell should a harp sound like if not like a harp?”

A: “More than legitimate to be asked, we try to explain.” 

Let’s put it this way: we simply filed that beautiful sound under a sort of time-related directory (The Past not The Present): strictly speaking for Alice, while Shabaka’s last incarnation (with shakuhachi and similar stuff) shaped a kind of spiritual jazz deeply influenced by Lady Coltrane. And by her harp(s). Then one day, joining the dots to track down Mette Rasmussen’s works (the most beautiful sport ever invented, second to skiing only), we bumped into Glass Triangle, a trio where the divine danish turbo-sax player is accompanied by Ryan Sawyer on percussion and Zeena Parkins on, oh christ, electric harp. From that moment on, harp entered, in its own right, the scope of our music (and the one of our credit card as well…). Zeena is most definitely a hell of a top notch artist, as her official bio notes clearly show. 

“New York based electro-acoustic composer/improviser, she’s a pioneer of contemporary harp practices. Using expanded techniques, object preparations and electronic processing she has redefined the instrument’s capacities. Concurrently, Parkins self-designed a series of electric instruments. She leans into the harp’s physical limitations pushing its boundaries and impossibilities. In her compositions, she utilizes collections, recombination, historic proximities, geography, tactility, spatial configurations and movement. Sonic presence and personality is revealed in explorations of subtle frequency shifts, feedback, over and under tones, melodic fragments, timbral and gestural intervals, perception and residues.” 

Her compositions have been commissioned by the Whitney Museum and the Tate Modern, as well as by choreographers like Merce Cunningham and Jennifer Lacey, her music soundtracked films of Daria Martin, Cynthia Madansky, Abigail Child, Mandy MacIntosh and Isabella Rossellini. Over a 30-year career Zeena has worked with an unlikely range of collaborators: Bjork, Yoko Ono, John Zorn, Pauline Oliveros, Butch Morris, Fred Frith, Ikue Mori, Nels Cline, Elliot Sharp, Nate Wooley, Tony Buck, Magda Mayas, Kim Gordon, Matmos, Chris Corsano, Anthony Braxton, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Ingrid Laubrock, Tom Rainey and many others. One of a kind, we told you. 

This time around, Zeena is teaming up with Cecilia Lopez. composer. musician and multimedia artist from Buenos Aires, currently based in New York. She works across the media of performance, sound, installation and the creation of sound devices and systems. Her work has been performed in several museums and galleries and her collaborators include Carmen Baliero, Aki Onda, Brandon Lopez, John Driscoll, Carrie Schneider and Lars Laumann among others. On “Red Shifts”, the first collaboration between them, out for Relative Pitch Records (one of the brightest stars among record companies’ galaxies) Cecilia is taking care of electronics, Red (a handwoven electronic instrument made from speaker wire) and synthesizers, while Zeena adds electric harp, acoustic harp and e-bow piano (an electronic device normally used for guitars that, creating a magnetic field, let the strings vibrate in a continuous motion) for an outcome of 8 pieces that drives the listener through a sonic labyrinth where traces of Ikue Mori or Eiko Ishibashi seem to show the exit: fake indications of course, there is no way to solve this free-electro Rubik's Cube but why the hell should we? 

Read More

Ben Bennett – Answers (Lobby Art Editions, 2025)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

The opening track, of this great long play vinyl (that made it in my top ten list for this year) sets the record straight. Titled “What a normal day is like” it utilizes several sound sources that are percussion-like (or he makes them sound that way indeed) but unrecognizable, unless you see images or a video of him producing sounds, it provides all the alternative ways of what sound is and what a sound source should be. It is really an answer to the “what is” question posed by his long time collaborator, saxophonist and improviser too, Jack Wright.

Yes, Bennett is an improviser in the purest form of one can be. His music, if you are lucky enough to catch him in the act, borders between sound and un-sound making, with each leg on one side. Utilizing every, and I mean every, object possible, he frees sound making from any restraint possible ... even though in 2025 there shouldn’t be such dialectic, but what can you do.

Trying to be radical just for the sake of it can easily feel boring and pretentious. The sixth track on this LP, titled “What my dog would sound like if I had one” is a clear case of the struggle anyone has to make in order, not to sound “different”, but to be himself or herself. Being you and creating music is almost un-describable, certainly very hard to review. Free improvisation, still proving its radicalism, is a marginalized form, but I don’t want to pin Ben’s music just to this. Even though “this” (meaning free improviasation) is very broad and open in any sense.

So, Answers can easily be described by the aforementioned genre, but also as electro-acoustic experimentation, musique concrete or just fragmented and dissipated rythmology that uses unknown (sic) sources. In any case, or to many other possible, Answers, is brave and radical.

Listen here:

@koultouranafigo

Read More

Suzan Peeters - Cassotto (Blickwinkel, 2025)

By Charlie Watkins 

Listening to BBC’s Late Junction programme recently, I suddenly had to stop what I was doing and just listen. I was hearing for the first time the extraordinary accordion playing of Suzan Peeters. This is accordion playing like I have never heard before: deep, guttural sounds, throbbing bass and fractured high frequencies: things that feel like they should be impossible for an acoustic instrument. Yet, unlike electronic music, Peeters’ accordion is very much alive.

Peeters is a very exciting new name on the Belgian experimental music scene, and her debut album Cassotto is an apt demonstration why. A ‘cassotto’ is the name for a resonating chamber which some accordions have that adds depth to the lower frequencies and detail to the higher frequencies. These two elements are both evident throughout the record, but it is the deeper frequencies in particular that make it shine as an affecting, visceral work.

The record is not long, clocking in at less than half an hour, and so feels like a series of miniatures, each one exploring a different aspect of Peeters’ playing. The first track, Jaco, opens softly – but by no means tentatively – and from the start the depth of sound is obvious, with fragmented, scraping structures on top of rich bass tones. Peeters uses some electronics on the album, on tracks such as Edith, but it is the accordion itself providing the shifting ground that underpins the whole album.

My favourite track on the record is Vroem. This is a drone track making full use of the accordion’s resonating chamber, and it reminds me somewhat of Brìghde Chaimbeul’s Scottish smallpipes playing (which would certainly be an interesting collaboration). The raw power of the accordion is really on display here: Peeters makes the instrument growl demonically, like a beast disturbed from sleep, such that even when she moves to a more melodic finale, the roaring throb is still palpable underneath. It is an incredibly impressive demonstration of just what an accordion is capable of.

It must be said that the album is not all, or even primarily, about the sounds Peeters can conjure. Each track has a strong sense of musical character, of shape, tension and movement. Some of the more delicate moments on the record – Linnen or Ratel, for example – demonstrate the breadth of Peeters’ musical interests, although for me they weren’t the highlights; the raw sonic capabilities of the accordion were what I was here for. It would be good to hear Peeters explore some longer works, developing the ideas that are presented here. Almost every track I felt could have been longer, but perhaps it is better to leave us wanting more rather than overdoing it on her debut recording.

This is really creative music, well worth your time. Peeters has breathed new life into her instrument and given it the spirit of a dragon, disturbing and enchanting in equal measure. The cover art – the shadow of a hand – is an apt metaphor for the music, because what is heard here is far darker than one would ever anticipate. The final track, Mucci, is a fitting end: the deep end is suddenly pulled away, letting the accordion breathe softly, returning to its slumber. I look forward to hearing Peeters bring it to life again.

Cassotto can be purchased on Bandcamp:

Read More

Arkady Gotesman - Music for an Imaginary Ballet (NoBusiness, 2025)

By Eyal Hareuveni

Arkady Gotesman (b. 1959) is one of the unsung heroes of European free jazz and free music, and clearly one of the most distinctive percussionists and improvisers in Lithuania. He was born in Ukraine (and his name is often spelt as Arkadijus Gotesmanas). From an early age, he decided that music would be not only his vocation but also his way of telling stories—personal, cultural, and universal. His professional career of more than 35 years encompasses contemporary music, local interdisciplinary theatre, dance, film, and poetry productions, klezmer music, collaborations with local heroes like Vyacheslav Ganelin, Vladimir Tarasov, Liudas Mockūnas, and Petras Vyšniauskas, as well as recorded albums with innovative improvisers such as Charles Gayle, Martin Küchen, Nate Wooley, and Barry Guy.

Music for an Imaginary Ballet (Muzika neegzistuojančiam baletui, which can also be translated as Music for Non-Existent Ballet) celebrates Gotesman’s creative legacy. It is based on his chamber solo percussion performance that reflects his entire creative path. The album is structured as a twelve-movement suite, or a musical diary that visits many collaborative, free improvised meetings, collecting pieces from 2000 to 2025, all recorded live around Lithuania.

The album begins and closes with short, evocative solo percussion pieces, “Stiklo Gabaliukai) (glass pieces), dedicated to the surrealist painter Marc Chagall. The powerful duet with Mockūnas, “It’s coming”, highlights Gutesman's qualities as a fearless, imaginative improviser who transforms every musical meeting into a singular, adventurous, and unpredictable journey, making it a boundless playground where he could explore rhythm, silence, sound, and texture with unlimited freedom. The pieces with Trio Alliance (Ganelin on piano and synth, and Vyšniauskas on reeds), and the one with quartet Emiritus (Vyšniauskas on reeds and piano, Vytautas Labutis on reeds and piano, and double bass player Eugenijus Kanevičus) stress Gutesman's precise textual touches, and the clever way he introduces a light groove. The duet with pianist Tomas Kutavičus explores both improvisers’ nuanced, rhythmic language.

The duet with Gayle (with whom Gotesman recorded the trio album Our Souls: Live In Vilnius, NoBusiness, 2009, with double bass player Dominic Duval) dives into spiritual, fiery free jazz. The duets with Nate Wooley (with whom Gotesman recorded Nox, NoBusiness, 2020, with Mockūnas and double bass master Barry Guy) and the one with Martin Küchen (with whom Gotesman recorded Live At Vilnius Jazz Festival, NoBusiness, 2016, with double bass player Mark Tokar) suggest two colourful but completely different stories - the first one is introspective and poetic, while the latter is restless and intense, but both are beautifully articulated by these resourceful improvisers-storytellers. The trio with Ned Rothenberg and double bass player Vladimir Volkov features Gotesman as a modern shaman conducting an uplifting rhythmic ritual.

Read More

Stephen Grew – Fire (Discus Music, 2025)

By Don Phipps

The beauty found within the three improvisations of pianist Stephen Grew’ s Fire feels submerged, discoverable by those willing to open its treasure box of abstractions, blues, and modern classical idioms, a box that weaves patterns every bit as free of representation as Pollock’s wild action paintings of the mid-20 ^th century. The well-crafted amalgamations emphasize Grew’s adept use of the pedal, which he relies on to craft his stream of consciousness– that and the occasional tweak inside the piano – like a dab of honey added to sweeten a strong tea.

“Fire 3” is the highlight of the three improvs. Here the music races along until it hits a sudden slowing of velocity – not a full stop – but a place where the mood changes to a more hallucinatory atmosphere, one more in than out. There is the feeling that though the music is abstract, a reserved dark and lingering intimacy resides within its phrases. To provide a literary metaphor, think of the incurable Morgul-knife wound Frodo suffers in “Lord of the Rings.” Even so, Grew can hop about with the best of them – creating stirring rhythmic impulses that faintly recall Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” as well as flourishes that lead to complex and almost overwhelming tonal clusters.

On “Fire 1,” after an abstract opening, Grew’s fingerings fashion a dance. Even as the action reaches car-chase velocity, Grew refrains from pouncing or gliding on the keys. Instead, he uses precise touches and the piano pedal to create his movements and sonics. In one passage, his left hand creates a rotating motif while his right hand dances lightly at the top of the key. This process reverses soon thereafter, with the left hand creating lower register splashes while the right hand creates a rotating motif at the top of the keys. These kinds of inverse pivots keep the piece unsettled and restless like a pinball propelled back and forth. And for those wishing for fireworks, the opening of “Fire 2” fits the bill. Here the notes light up under Grew’s chaotic attack. As the improv continues, the voicings he employs are never timid. Rather, they have the feeling of assurance not unlike a trapeze artist leaving a swing to do a flip mid-air knowing that upon completion another swing will arrive just in time.

There is much to enjoy in these fascinating conversations – for that is what this album is – a discussion between Grew and his listeners. What this dialogue entails is something only a personal journey into these improvisations can reveal. Enjoy.

Read More