Florian Arbenz, Greg Osby, and Bill Frisell - Quiet Lights (Hammer Recordings, 2026)

By Brian Earley

 

Swiss born drummer/percussionist Florian Arbenz has spent much of his time in the post-pandemic years working to join peoples of different ages, cultures, and genres together. His Conversation LAB, which serves as the philosophical groundwork of this release, posits “respect,” for “diversity and a spirit of togetherness, both in music and in society,” ideals that have become all but illegal in the United States in 2026, as well as in some parts of Europe, Asia, and South America. Here in the United States, our administration just proposed new laws that would financially punish secondary schools and universities if they “provide targeted support to minority students” according to a USA Todayreport, and even bike lanes have been officially assailed as supporting diversity and equity too much, a statement which sounds laughable until one sees that this logic stripped away over one billion dollars of funding. 

 

The voice of Arbenz and other active artists are needed at this moment more than ever in my lifetime. And, for this project Florian Arbenz, who hails from Basel, Switzerland, has brought together guitarist Bill Frisell, a white man from Denver by way of Baltimore, with saxophonist Greg Osby, a black man from St. Louis. There should be nothing radical about this, and we cannot allow our bars of social expectation to sink so low that this seems a departure from normalcy. It is not 1960, but even in that year it should not have been an act of moral resistance for Dave Brubeck to refuse to tour without bassist Eugene Wright.

 

For this lovely album Arbenz utilizes lessons he learned in Havana, Cuba years ago, and, to a lesser extent on this particular project, rhythmic techniques from Western Asia and India. Quiet Lights opens with a “rhumba-inspired” song penned by Arbenz titled “Homenaje.” There is so much peace in this work, that I have found myself listening to its at times longingly sad, at times soaringly optimistic, timbre over and over. The work begins with Arbenz playing a complicated rhythmic pattern on drum-kit and custom-made percussion tools. As is common throughout the album, Arbez does not abandon time, but he doesn’t exactly play it metronomically either, instead opening up percussive and rhythmic air that allow Osby and Frisell to sail like a breeze through the upper stories of a temple. The four minute mark on this piece, for example, contains so much human-musical information that, if for only a moment, joy is alive and manifest.

 

There are several other highlights on this album. One is found in the second song, “Chant.” This, like every other piece on the album save one, is again composed by Arbenz, who claims he is “inspired by Max Roach’s vision of the drummer as composer.” “Chant” commits one of the drummer’s most radical moves as a percussionist: his drums are barely audible as he allows Osby’s floating saxophone and Frisell’s ethereal legato guitar to fill the room. “Lueget vo Berg und Tal,” a traditional Swiss song, again features cymbals and bells played with quiet intimacy as Frisell drifts in liquid time.

 

The closer “Rhumba” features more kinetic and energetic drumming from Arbenz. Here, he creates an array of rhythmic templates that Osby and Frisell collectively use as a counterpoint to their own adventurous improvisations. Arbenz has stated that the Conversation LAB approach, while using form and clarity, should focus on spontaneous creation and the musicians should be “authentic” and “truly unique.” “Rhumba” perhaps demonstrates this concept more completely than any other part of the recording.

 

In closing I will say the silent part out loud. I am well aware that Greg Osby is a divisive musician for readers of the FJC. Frisell and Arbenz are also names that one does not immediately associate with free jazz. However, while portions of this album are clearly in the pocket, all three creators work in beautiful moments full of impromptu colorations and communal development. There are no overdubs whatsoever. Nearly every track is a first take, and the entire album was recorded in four hours one afternoon in September. There is something reassuring, calming even, about the close listening and spontaneous responses of the musicians here. I might even add the word hopeful. Quiet Lights is, at the very least, worth an open-minded listen. 

 

One can listen to Quiet Lights here:

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Tom Challenger & Evan Parker - May Spring Last A Lifetime (False Walls, 2026)

By Dan Sorrells

I won't spend much time describing the sound of May Spring Last A Lifetime. It is a searching, bursting 53 minute duet of tenor saxophones, one of which is played by Evan Parker, recorded in pristine clarity in Ramsgate. It may be worth noting that, at 81, Parker's had a long enough recording career that this isn't the first (or even fifth) tenor duet put to tape, Parker having spared with other tenors wielded by the likes of Anthony Braxton, Joe McPhee, John Tchicai, Hans Koch, and Urs Leimgruber. Here, his partner is Tom Challenger (quite a surname given the context!), a significantly younger musician who is a familiar face on the London scene, playing with musicians like Olie Brice and Kit Downes and in groups like Brass Mask. Challenger is an admirable match for Parker, and both players stick closely to each other through gradual turns of technique and dynamics. Above all, there is space for things to develop.

In the five or so years between Challenger and Parker's first meeting and the recording of May Spring Last A Lifetime, the two developed an informal process where they would meet with their tenors, pausing between bouts of playing to talk about their instruments and the music they were making. In the extended and wonderful conversation in the liner notes between Challenger, Parker, and False Walls label head CJ Mitchell, Challenger says that what felt significant about their duo was that, having "no goal of performance" for so many years, it felt like practice. Parker points out that "practice" is a "complicated" word, and what concerns the two is not practice in the sense of repetitively mastering the "how" of playing the instrument, but rather in approaching the "how" of playing together. Challenger characterizes this practice as the "joint activity" of "discover[ing] that you're not in control," "playing something when you're not really sure of what you're doing" and trying "to figure out what the hell that is."

As the conversation winds on, something possibly controversial is revealed: May Spring Last A Lifetime is not a single take of a herculean imaginative feat. It captures a typical meeting between the two, but has the pauses, the conversations, the breaks to change reeds removed. And not only are these gaps omitted, but Challenger has then rearranged the musical pieces. In an era where the perennial debate about the legitimacy or authenticity of recordings of improvised music has largely receded, and where there are more recordings than any one lifetime could survey, I'll admit to still bristling at this revelation. (For his part, Parker also seemed skeptical at first—or at the very least, like such an idea simply wouldn't have occurred to him). As I read on, Challenger's explanation was compelling, so much so that I think the choice becomes one of the most interesting things about May Spring Last A Lifetime. It stipulates that, yes, of course fidelity to a long-since-evaporated musical event is out of the question. But what if that's somehow more true to our experience?

Put plainly, Challenger says that the "purest perception" he has of recording with Parker, "of that event, is my memory." Only in the first order experience of the music in the moment that it happened can one be said to (maybe) have some sort of undiluted access. Even that is as evanescent as the notes themselves, immediately mediated. Everything after each vanishing instant is memory: inevitably shuffled, reordered, rendered diffuse. "The cool thing is that you can just change that perception in your head," says Challenger. This is how we engage with our memory. To alter the order of the music "isn't so problematic, because actually, when I think of it, I think of that memory, [and] I'm still reordering it all the time."

Sitting here, listening to a recording released long after the players vibrated the air in a room half the world away, I wonder what it is about Challenger's reconstruction that even caused the question of authenticity to enter my mind. Was it because I had a romanticized assumption about what I was hearing, and then the illusion was shattered? Do I really value something more about continuity or stamina than I do the actual engagement and creativity reflected in the music? Am I imposing some condition of purity on this document to assuage the guilt of having to encounter the music in this form? "You had to be there." But I wasn't. Is there something about Challenger reordering the pieces but concealing their seams that exhumes some dusty old bugbear, that maybe we haven't assimilated the troubles with recordings of free improvisation so much as repressed them?

It occurs to me that I've already encountered a version of all of this—and with Parker, to boot. Many years ago, I attended a performance of Parker, Nate Wooley, and Joe Morris that was later released as Ninth Square on Clean Feed. When I put that CD on, I recognize none of the music despite being mere feet from the players as it happened. My memories of the event have more to do with the setting and a sort of charged air of anticipation than with any kind of musical content. Ninth Squarehas six tracks—much like the six segments Challenger arranged into May Spring Last A Lifetime —and while several run one into the next, I couldn't possibly tell you whether those tracks accurately represented any portion of the two sets that were played that evening. What Challenger asks us to recognize is that these ambiguities and distortions are true for the people who make the music, too. We are all forced into reencounters that render things differently and newly. For all of us who weren't with Parker and Challenger in the Arco Barco studio, we're invited through Challenger's edits to partially occupy the perspective of one of the music's creators as they also turn it over in their mind.

Thinking about May Spring Last A Lifetime sent me to the bookshelf, where I pulled down David Grubbs' Records Ruin the Landscape,which delightfully mucks about in the same quagmire . I'm ruminating about these questions here because now, in a world awash in recordings of improvised music, a world where many listeners engage more frequently and more deeply with recordings than with live performance, there are very few albums that seem to dare us to contemplate how we engage with this music. The pleasures of sharing in what Parker and Challenger created together have little to do with chronological integrity. They are also not limited to those conveyed by physical presence. You don’t need to be aware of any of what I’ve discussed to partake in them. And if the way we encounter the music on May Spring Last A Lifetime is not quite true-to-life, it remains true to the spirit in which it was created, and—just as in Challenger's memory—the journey of two tenor saxophones becomes a contoured and nuanced surface and not merely the straight line between a start and a stop.

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Henri Herteman, Michel Kristof, Claude Parle, Jean-Luc Petit - At the oasis (self-released, 2026)

By Richard Blute

“Midnight at the oasis,
Send your camel to bed.”

-Maria Muldaur

Today we’re looking at the album At The Oasis from Henri Herteman on trombone and piano, Michel Kristof on guitar, Claude Parle on accordion, and Jean-Luc Petit on sax. I had previously reviewed the album Fisheye which had the same lineup except with Makoto Sato on drums rather than Petit. It was one of my favorite albums of 2025. So I hit play with a great deal of excitement. In Part.I, we’re treated to some vivid accordion from Parle. It’s the perfect introduction to the album. Then Petit jumps in with a bleat and some expressive soloing with just the right amount of overblowing. Herteman is on piano here urging the music forward in lieu of drums, and Kristof adds some droning, almost alien sounding atmospherics. They quickly build to a fine crescendo. It’s clear that the musicians are deeply invested in the music and really enjoy playing together.

Herteman opens Part.II on trombone. After a few questioning notes, Herteman announces his presence. A blast from the trombone is one of the great sounds of jazz and Herteman’s trombone playing throughout is a pure delight. Herteman and Petit have a wonderful dialogue on this piece. Kristof and Parle create a background that is sometimes disorienting and sometimes peaceful, in response to what their bandmates have to say.

I love listening to these musicians play together, since they successfully bridge the gap between a more textural style of free jazz and energy music. It takes very good musicians to be able to do this, and fortunately we have four.

Now I want everyone who remembers the 70s to admit it. You were humming “Midnight At The Oasis” while reading this review, weren’t you?

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Gianni Gebbia - Petrichor (objet-a, 2026)

By Ferruccio Martinotti

“To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything”. (J.W. von Goethe)

If there's one artist who embodies the layered, cultured, and restless soul of Sicily, it's Gianni Gebbia. But beware, his musical lexicon is never a regionalist language, but always an extraordinary, challenging, universal Esperanto. Born in Palermo in 1961, he taught himself jazz by gaining experience in numerous Sicilian groups and orchestras and participating in jam sessions with passing American musicians. Like all men from the islands, he couldn't resist the call of the Horizon Line, and in 1980 he moved to New York, where he experienced the "no wave" movement and the last glimmers of the loft scene. During those same years, he attended the legendary University of the Streets on the Lower East Side, directed by saxophonist Muhammad Salahuddeen, before moving to Paris in 1984 to study with Jean-Claude Forenbach and Alan Silva. In 1990, he performed solo at the FMP “Total Music Meeting” in Berlin alongside musicians such as Steve Lacy and Lindsey Cooper, and since 1991, he has collaborated with German percussionist Guenter Baby Sommer and double bassist Peter Kowald, thus reuniting one of the most telluric duos of European free jazz. In 1993 he formed the folk-improv project “Terra Arsa” along with Vittorio Villa and singer Miriam Palma. In recent years, performances have been frequent alongside contemporary and butoh dancers (Masaki Iwana, Tadashi Endo, Antonio Carallo, Julie Stanzak, Yves Musard), poets (Alberto Masala), videomakers (Salvo Cuccia), film and theatre directors (Raul Ruiz, Roberto Andò, Jerome Savary, Guido Chiesa, Vanessa Redgrave, Heiner Goebbels, Aurelien Bory, Stefania Casini, Davide Riondino, Luca Guadagnino, Pina Bausch), visual artists (Toti Garraffa, Nicola Console, Martha Keller, Georgina Starr) and circus artists (Francois Chat, Vera Mormino). The collaborations in the musical field are impressive: Heiner Goebbels, David Moss, Zu, Otomo Yoshihide, Fred Frith, Anatoly Vapirov, Vladimir Tarasov, Jean Marc Montera, Dominique Regef, Louis Sclavis, Pino Minafra, Jim O' Rourke, Lee Ranaldo, Glen Velez, Benoit Delbecq, Noel Akchoté, Antonello Salis, Sergey Kuryokhin, Henri Kaiser, Michel Doneda, Takaoka Daysuke, Shin'ichi Isohata, Reiko Imanishi, Garth Powell, Evan Parker, Francesco Cusa, Domenico Sciajno, Butch Morris, Lukas Ligeti, Elliot Sharp, Shin'ichi Isohata, William Wynant, Satoko Fuji, Dominique Regef, Benoit Delbecq, Lawrence Butch Morris, Wadada Leo Smith, Milford Graves, to name some. Gebbia's ongoing projects in recent years include “Trionacria” alongside Roy Paci on trumpet and Francesco Cusa on drums,“Switters” with Francesco Cusa and Vince Vasi, and “Zen Widow” with Californians Garth Powell and Matt Goodheart. His solo work has continued steadily since 1990. In 2011, he played with Eiko Ishibashi, both in a duo and a trio with bassist Daniele Camarda. In 2013, he formed a new band, “Magnetic Trio”, with which, for his own label “objet-a”, he reinterprets all the compositions created from the 1980s to the present, as a sort of compendium of all his musical experiences. In 2020, he formed the open project "The Fruitful Darkness”, which features Massimo Pupillo and Tony Buck. In 2024, as “The Mayfield” (Heiner Goebbels, Willi Bopp, Cecile Lartigau, Nicolas Perrin, and Camille Emaille), he released an extraordinary album with Intakt Records. In recent years, he has begun studying and using Indian bansuri flutes in his performances, and he cultivates his study of Indian music, having attended courses with the renowned Maestro Hariprasad Chaurasia and his students Debopriya and Suchismita Chatterjee. This interest led to the solo albums “Vapor” and "Calor”, where Gebbia primarily uses the bansuri flute, and the same occurs in Petrichor. Titled with a neologism that combines the Greek words "Petra" (boulder, stone) and "Ichor" (sap), referring to the scent of rain on dry earth, the album unfolds across 11 tracks, all under three minutes, suspended between ambient atmospheres, micro-variations of sound, and sensorial perceptions. The textures of Indian wind instruments and electronics play with Eastern influences without folkloric shortcuts or implausible xerox-effects, but rather through a unique interpretation by someone who has embraced those cultural styles in their soul, even before than in their musical technique. In a single track ("Metabolico"), Gianni returns to the soprano saxophone, while the 11 minutes extended bonus track ("Zazeela") pays homage to Marian Zazeela (April 15, 1940-March 28, 2024), a New York-based artist and musician, member of the experimental music collective "Theater of Eternal Music," known for her collaboration with her husband, composer La Monte Young. For those who dug Shabaka's shakuhachi period but a really great record per se.

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Sunday Video - Simon Rose solo

 Our Sunday video this week offers a beautiful, intimate and well-recorded - both sound and editing - solo performance by British saxophonist Simon Rose, here on baritone. The video lasts only 20 minutes but is a great testimony for Rose's art: captivating, sensitive, explorative, adventurous, physical and as said, also intimate. 

I can only advise readers to check out his albums we reviewed on our blog, starting with Vienna Solo, equally from 2024. 

Performed at Acker Stadt Palast, Berlin. Curated by Volker Meitz, who also managed the sound and the mixing. Video recording: Florian Japp Editing: Per Jörgen Erkius. 

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Signe Emmeluth, Dag Erik Knedal Andersen, and Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard - Live at The All Ears Festival (Sonic Transmissions, 2026)

By Brian Earley

 

Signe Emmeluth, the alto saxophonist/composer/band leader/new Danish Thing progenitor/and hyperdynamic cosmic dynamo, burns bright in 2026. I have written about the artist’s work on numerous occasions for the Free Jazz Collective, as have my colleagues (if you missed it and you dig Signe, you need to read this review of Emmeluth’s stunning recording with MoE and Ikuro Takahashi by William Rossi).

What more can Emmeluth give us? I mean, it seems every time I communicate with someone about her, superlatives in the realms of incredible, amazing, or even somehow unexpected are thrown about. My reaction to this may be to say that the English language falls short. These adjectives are not only deserved and accurate, but like all words, they absolutely fail to relay what makes her so special. In 2026 alone Signe has appeared on at least three albums I think may be the album of the year (I have in mind We Vote Force Majeure by Hyper Elastic Jinx, With Love by the Amoeba, and the aforementioned Live at Børsen Kulturhus with MoE and Ikuro Takahashi). She has appeared on numerous other works this year, and will appear on yet another recording with guitarist Karl Borja this coming October. And the range of these recordings is just as sweeping: experimental music versions of compositional suite, punk rock, and new age folk.

On this new release with bassist Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard and drummer/percussionist Dag Erik Knedal Andersen, Emmeluth finds herself this time in a pure free jazz context. What I mean by this is Live at All Ears documents three musicians playing with no prior plan. This is a live set including only one 37 minute take consisting essentially of two tracks. The three allow the music to develop organically in the moment through deep listening, inventive contributions, and intuitive communal connections. 

 

The first of the two works presented here does the bulk of the heavy lifting. Running over 27 minutes, this piece demonstrates all of what these three make function so well. The work opens quietly, with Signe tonguing and repeating an impromptu motif built around a single bent, squeaky note. Knedal Andersen soon enters with bells and overtones from cymbals bowed with sticks. Skavhaug Nergaard simultaneously begins to pluck harmonics on his bass in the album’s first display of a kind of spontaneous communication that appears to fall somewhere between a magic trick and instrumental mastery. The reality, of course, is the three from the outset display the kind of intuitive connection one finds only in the very best moments of free improvisation. 

 

Each musician continues to provide momentum by contributing new developments or by responding to a contribution by another member. Moments like those around the 4:25 or 19:30 marks allow the listener to realize it is fruitless to determine who is the leader and who is the follower on this date as the musicians operate as one collective body of sound. As I listened to this piece, I found myself surprised again and again at how many times I could not figure out whether certain sounds were being created by the drum kit, the double bass, or the alto saxophone. These, after all, are pretty different sounding instruments. Somehow, nonetheless, moments like those around 6:00 or 8:40 provide a wonderful blending and confusion of sonic voices. 

 

The second work runs much shorter at around eight and a half minutes in length. This piece features a prickly start-and-stop collective improvisatory approach, and one of the highlights for me is the theme Emmeluth conjures into being. I do not know if Signe does so intentionally, but the leitmotif here is a melodic fragment used at times by Peter Brötzmann throughout his career. Shortly after Peter’s passing, I remember feeling deeply moved by the posthumous release of Chicken Shit Bingo with the saxophone giant and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love. The theme one hears throughout the second work on Live at All Ears is similar to that played by Peter in “Smuddy Water” on that record.

Emmeluth, Knedal Andersen, and Skavhaug Nergaard manifest interplay and equity for listeners on this Sonic Transmissions release. Exploration, vulnerability, and adventure occupy equally important roles performed with spontaneity and unity. And, if you care to hear what humans sound like at their best when they get together, work together, and create together, I highly recommend giving At All Ears a listen. 

 

Live at the All Ears Festival can be listened to here:

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Rodrigo Amado & David Maranha - Desolation Row (European Echoes, 2026)

By Paul Acquaro

It’s a slow burn and one that is quickly alight. From the opening moments of the album through its mid-way wanderings to its tense, and then suddenly gentle closing bars, we hear a consistent lightly dissonant thrum from David Maranha colorful electric organ and the eviscerating emotional tones of Rodrigo Amado’s tenor sax. One could easily slap the label spiritual jazz to this music as it truly seems to climb up from somewhere deep within both musicians, but there is more to it than that. 

 

Over the course of 41 minutes, the one uninterrupted track of Desolation Row throbs and pulsates with an urgency that is palpable. Throughout, Maranha lays down a harmonic wave pool that flows and rolls with unrelenting, but calm, ferocity. For Amado, he does the opposite, his melodic ideas sail over these boiling waters with a confidence and focused energy, only once or twice going so far as to sonically abuse the instrument’s mechanics. It's quite easy to form a mental image of Amado’s veins pulsating as he pushes his instrument to its melodic limits.

 

Recorded live at the OUT.FEST in the outskirts of Lisbon in October 2025, Desolation Row follows the duo’s well-received Wrecks released the year before. Looking across both titles, one can hear, aside from the titular reference to Bob Dylan’s surreal masterpiece from 1965’s Highway 65 Revisited, which surveyed the cultural and political landscapes of its times with a prematurely cynical eye, an allusion, or acknowledgement, of decay. The music across both of this duo's albums is indeed foreboding and laced with a discernible disquiet — fitting for our current times. This is where the aforementioned spirituality meets current events, surveying and synthesizing the turmoil in the world and channeling it into something terrifying and lovely.

 

There is, however, more sense of hope on Desolation Row than on Wrecks. While Amado is still explosive, he has a slightly lighter melodic touch here. Similarly with Maranha, his organ playing is a little less abrasive and sharp edged. I was happy to survive Wrecks and I’ve come back multiple times to Desolation Row. You should too.

 

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Jon Raskin - Live at Celeste (self-released, 2026)

By Hrayr Attarian

Saxophonist Jon Raskin is a restlessly innovative improviser who excels in the company of like-minded musicians. His discography is rich in collaborative and spontaneously created works that show seamless camaraderie. Live at Celesteis one such example. Celeste is a Vienna venue that hosts improvisation sessions on Monday nights, a series that bass clarinetist Susanna Garmayer curates. On November 4th, 2024, Raskin, with frequent collaborator Thomas Lehn on synthesizers and bassist Matija Schellander, performed a single 31-minute multilayered piece that is vibrant, intriguing, and hypnotic .

“Sounds of the Wienfluss” starts with angular ensemble exchanges. Raskin’s agile alto saxophone forges a serpentine path within Schellander’s bowed phrases. Lehn contributes sound effects that underscore the dramatic ambiance. The mood is quite contemplative throughout, even though the group conversation ebbs and flows from fiery and riotous to quiet and somber. Raskin blows gentle, flittering notes, as Lehn peppers the music with clear, resonant chimes. Matija adds an organic quality to the interplay with dark, dense lines that delightfully contrast with Lehn’s otherworldly tones. Raskin’s alto alternates between urgent and acerbic melodies to solemn, crystalline refrains depending on the atmosphere his bandmates create.

A third of the way in, Schellander’s percussive bass ushers in an expectant undercurrent. Lehn responds with tense synth vamps. As Raskin returns with an elegant and passionate solo, the tune takes on an otherworldly quality with a touch of angst. Lehn brings subtle theatricality to the collective conversation, while Schellander contributes dark lyricism. Both perfectly complement Raskin’s forlorn saxophone lines. The result is wistful and introspective with a touch of mysticism. Slowly, as this stimulating and emotive three-way stream of consciousness comes to closure the trio members align their individual extemporizations with one another. Thus, the conclusion is haunting and provocative.

Live at Celeste is a brilliant and poetic recording. Raskin, Lehn, and Schellander demonstrate sublime synergy and share an innovative spirit. The result is a satisfying listening experience, one that stays memorable. even after the album itself has stopped playing.

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The return of diatribes: Part II

By Nick Ostrum

diatribes, the long-standing house duo of Insub Records, had been on hiatus while percussionist Cyril Bondi and electronicist d’incise pursued other projects, sometimes together, sometimes apart. That hiatus has ended, at least for now. This year, 2026, has gifted us four realizations of a single score, L’apport (French for “the contribution”), each featuring the diatribes core in collaboration with a different musician (or in the sole case of Sound the alarm, a team of five) to round out a third rotating seat.

diatribes and Stefan Thut - L'apport : Lâ dèchigeâ (Insub, 2026) 

Composer and cellist Stefan Thut has collaborated with d’incise and Bondi in the Insub.8tet (many of whose members appear on the 7tet release featured below), but, as far as I can tell, never just with the diatribes duo. Recorded in situ in the Wallis Mountains of Switzerland, this realization of L’apport comes across as a cross section of Thut’s minimalism (coupled with short references to Swiss folk songs), d’incise and Bondi’s forays into field-recorded environmental improvisation (see their Polytopies project), and all three’s long-standing fascination with long-tones. Bird chirps introduce Lâ dèchigeâ and abound throughout. With Bondi now on shruti box and d’incise on objects and laptop, the ambient bird, breeze, and other nature sounds provide the underlying soundtrack with which the trio interacts. Maybe by default of volume, Thut stands out the most with his intermittent legato drawls over the textures laid by the nature sounds and diatribes’s soft incidental contributions. A fine, divergent complement to the other performances released here and recommended especially to those drawn toward hyper-minimalism and musical interventions into nature sounds.

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Insub.7tet - L'apport : Sound the alarm (Insub, 2026) 

L’apport: Sound the alarm is the outlier in this project, as it expands the diatribes +1 core to a full seven. In addition to d’incise and Bondi, the group is rounded out by two vocalists, Antoine Läng and Natalie Peters, violinist Anouck Genthon, and reedists Christophe Verthet and Esther Vaucher, respectively on soprano and tenor. Because of the size of the group, one might be tempted to assume Sound the alarm is the apex of the project. However, I am not sure that this realization is any more complete than the others. L’apport is that open.

This final installment unfolds as slowly as the others, but with more elements and a more frequent trade-off between them. Läng and Peters voices add a human dimension and, following the dedication, a sense of urgency as they intermingle with, supplant, and yield to the various instruments that calmly vie for space. The resulting sense of calm is disquieting rather than comforting. One gets the sense of drowning, or the dolorous moans of those present and past contending to be heard among a series of other soft ribbons of sound and muted alarm pulses about 13 minutes and the more forceful soundings starting 26 minutes in. Sound the alarm, indeed. Let us hope there are ears open enough to hear.

NB: All proceeds from purchases of L’apport: Lâ dèchigeâ will benefit the Ghasan Abu Sita children’s fund.

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Read part 1 here 

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The return of diatribes: Part I

By Nick Ostrum

diatribes, the long-standing house duo of Insub Records, had been on hiatus while percussionist Cyril Bondi and electronicist d’incise pursued other projects, sometimes together, sometimes apart. That hiatus has ended, at least for now. This year, 2026, has gifted us four realizations of a single score, L’apport (French for “the contribution”), each featuring the diatribes core in collaboration with a different musician (or in the lone case of Sound the alarm, a team of five) to round out a third rotating seat.

diatribes and Jean-Luc Guionnet - L'apport : An awkward position (insub, 2026) 

Jean-Luc Guionnet is one of the most uncompromising saxophonists around. He plays maximalist, and he plays minimalist. He also produces electro-acoustic sound art, more in the latter vein than the former, which give him the ears and unique set of chops to deal with the current understated incarnation of diatribes. The title, L’apport: An awkward position, is likely meant with some irony. No member’s contribution is awkward, nor does any seem to throw the others for an unwieldy loop. This is slowly churning, meticulously constructed granular music. Gone are the beats of d’incise’s early days. This is abstract music conducted in real-time at the molecular level. Turn the headphones up and indulge in the beautifully rendered textures, punctuated periodically by a few choice honks, squawks, flutters, and clucks from a deeply attuned Guionnet. This is certainly among the the spikiest and most active of the L’apport series.

diatribes and Clara Levy - L'apport : Ke ya me transí (insub, 2026)

Ke ya me transí (Sesotho for I’m taking the train) features diatribes with violinist Clara Levy. It is a slow, cumulative affair. Unlike An awkward position, this realization is based on drones, including Bondi’s methodical exploration of a vibraphone. Images of the hum of bees on a sultry day, sunlight refracted through a wispy fog, its counterpart in the tentative excavation of a hazy memory flit by. Six minutes in, the drama thickens in a pulsing marcato run, and from there the piece departs on a heavier expanse of long tones over various rings, rattles, and other sounds. Out of this sonic brume, Levy periodically engages in passages of melodies that play both with medieval Sephardic scales (as the notes indicate) and remind me of Johnny Chang and other contemporary lowercase violinists, who blend quiet, amelodic structures with strained classical and folk motifs. Fifteen minutes in, the repeating notes mark a break, then a heavier atmosphere, again returning to a series of vying long tones. (This type of break repeats periodically throughout the single track.) A wonderful and deeply introspective album, and a consummate example of what the chamber music tradition still has offer when cambered through the right lens.

diatribes and Lise Barkas - L'Apport : Apprendre la manière (Insub, 2026) 

The third installment in the series invites Lise Barkas’s bagpipes and hurdy gurdy to the crew. The result is a unique blend of the contemporary – long tones, false starts and stops, the elevation of the experiment over some consummative realization, electronics – early bardic traditions – Barkas’ contributions and the interaction between a single measure leitmotif and a thudding bass drum. In its circular ritualism, this resembles d’incise and Bondi’s recent work in their La Tène trio. For her part, Barkas helps pull the music from the dance hall inclinations of that project to sprightlier, if also halting, terrain. The irregular beats are more conducive to prancing around a dance-fire than bobbing around some warped chthonic club. The edges are frayed. The contours are ruffled and twisted. The abrupt stops can be distracting at times in the first realization, but are often deployed to great effect, especially in the glitchier passages and the more robust second one.

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