Free Jazz Collective's Top Albums of 2025

 

Jazz (c) David Monaghan

Compiling top 10 lists is a nerve wracking experience. It forces one to reconcile the year of releases and then process it in comparison to one and another. There is a great deal of chance in it: first, the album has to have actually been listened to (that's always a good place to start), and then it must have had the chance to grow on the listener (acquired tastes are often stronger than instant attractions). Then, there is a psychological bit: of anxiety - what about all of the albums that do not fit? What about a recording that wasn't reviewed here in time? And that's just the start. So, what can you do? It's important not to read these lists as definitive, but as a snap-shot in time and a best-effort to fit our format... and hopefully dear readers and writers, you all will expand on the lists in the comments, we look forward to it!

 

So, now that that's been gotten out, what follows are the lists from the writers of the Free Jazz Collective, kicked off with our collective top entries. First, a quick note on how this is compiled: our rules for the individual lists are that any recording that appears on a list must have been reviewed on the Free Jazz Blog or by the listing reviewer, personally, somewhere. Archival recordings do not have to be reviewed and they are not considered for the top album. Next, the most listed recordings are culled to produce the list of top recordings of the year, which you will see listed below. Then, as you are checking out the lists, the collective will be busy voting from the selections in the top album list below to come up with our number one album of the year, which will be presented on the site on January 1st.  

In the meantime, you can search our site for any of the recordings listed below to read a review of the recording. 

 

Enjoy!

Top 16 Albums of the Collective listed A - Z 
All albums that appeared on the lists three or more times each and are included in our album of the year vote.

• Anna Högberg Attack - Ensammseglaren (Fonstret)
• Ava Mendoza, gabby fluke mogul, Carolina Perez - Mama Killa (Burning Ambulance)
• Camila Nebbia, Kit Downes, Andrew Lisle - Exhaust (Relative Pitch)
• Ebaugh Crane Presley - Detergent (scatterArchive)
• Han-earl Park, Lara Jones, Pat Thomas - Juno 3: Proxemics (Buster and Friends) 
• Isaiah Collier, William Hooker, William Parker - The Ancients (Eremite)
• Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio - Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms)
• Joëlle Léandre & Evan Parker - Long Bright Summer (RogueArt)
• Paal Nilssen-Love Circus with The Ex Guitars - Turn Thy Loose (PNL)
• Rodrigo Amado The Bridge - Further Beyond (Trost)
• Sophie Agnel – Learning (OTORUKO)
• Sophie Agnel / John Butcher - Rare (Les Disques VICTO)
• Sven-Åke Johansson, Pierre Borel, Seymour Wright, Joel Grip - Two Days at Café OTO (OTOROKU)
• The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters - self-titled (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
• Tim Berne - Yikes Too (Screwgun / Out Of Your Head)
• Wadada Leo Smith & Sylvie Courvoisier - Angel Falls (Intakt Records) 

Who will take the coveted Album of the Year? Check back on January 1st! 

 

And now in no particular order, the individual lists from the collective. When the lists are ranked, they will be presented with the ranking, otherwise the listing is unranked. 

 

Martin Schray 

1. Marshall Allen's Ghost Horizons - Live in Philadelphia (Otherly Love Records/Ars Nova Workshop)
2. Isaiah Collier, William Parker, William Hooker – The Ancients (Eremite) 
3. Joe McPhee- I’m Just Say’n (Smalltown Supersound) 
4. The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters - self-titled (Corbett vs. Dempsey)  
5. PainKiller - The Great God Pan (Tzadik) 
6. Earscrather - Otoliths (Aerophonic Records) 
7. Sophie Agnel/ John Butcher - RARE (Les Disques VICTO) 
8. Wheelhouse (Dave Rempis, Nathan McBride, Jason Adasiewicz) - House and Home (Aerophonic) 
9. Ebaugh Crane Presley - Detergent (scatterArchive) 
10. Mats Gustafsson, Ken Vandermark, Tomeka Reid, Chad Taylor - Pivot (Silkheart)  

Historic/Archival Releases:  

• Cecil Taylor & Tony Oxley - Flashing Spirits (Burning Ambulance) 
• Rodrigo Amado/ Chris Corsano - The Healing (European Echoes) 
• Hüsker Dü: 1985 - The Miracle Year (Numero Group) 

Gary Chapin

1. Tim Berne - Yikes Too (Screwgun / Out of Your Head)
2. Tomas Fujiwara - Dream Up (Out of Your Head)
3. Myra Melford - Splash (Intakt)
4. The Hemphill Stringtet  - Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill (Out of Your Head)
5. Ray Anderson/Ivo Perelman - 12 Stages of Spiritual Alchemy (Fundacj Słuchaj)
6. Marilyn Crispell & Harvey Sorgen - Forest (Fundacja Sluchaj)
7. Paul Dunmall - Red Hot Ice (Discus)
8. George Cartwright and Bruce Golden - South From a Narrow Arc  (self-released)
9. Ivo Perelman, Nate Wooley, Matt Moran, Mark Helias, Tom Rainey - A Modicum of Blues (Fundacja Słuchaj)
10. Gregg Belisle-Chi - Slow Crawl: Performing the Music of Tim Berne (Screwgun)

 Historic/Archival Releases:

• Anthony Braxton (England) 1985 - Anthony Braxton
• In Lieu - Snakeoil (Screwgun)
• Snakeoil OK - Snakeoil (Screwgun)

Hyran Attarian

• Marshall Allen - New Dawn (Weekend Records)
  
• Wadada Leo Smith & Sylvie Courvoisier – Angel Falls (Intakt Records)
  
• Stian Larsen/Colin Webster/Ruth Goller/Andrew Lisle - Temple of Muses (Relative Pitch)
  
• William Parker/Hugo Costa/Philipp Ernsting - Pulsar (NoBusiness)
  
• Ivo Perelman and Nate Wooley - Polarity 4 (Burning Ambulance)
  
• Bloomers - Cyclism (Relative Pitch)
  
• Amir ElSafffar - New Quartet Live at Pierre Boulez Saal 2 (Maqām Records)
  
• Isaiah Collier, William Parker, William Hooker – The Ancients (Eremite)
  
• Alexandra Grimal & Giovanni Di Domenico - Shakkei (Relative Pitch Records)
  
• SoSaLa - 1983 - Live at Montreux Jazz Festival and Rathausplatz Bern (DooBeeDoo Records)

 

Richard Blute

1. Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp - Armageddon Flower (Tao Forms)
   Not just album of the year, but one for the all-time list. Captures the depraved times we live in and still manages to offer us all hope.  
   
   
2. Rodrigo Amado The Bridge - Further Beyond (Trost)
   An all-star band if ever there was one. The interaction between Amado and von Schlippenbach is especially brilliant.  
   
   
3. Yes Deer - Everything That Shines, Everything That Hurts (Superpang)
   Signe Emmeluth’s slashing saxophone over a no-wave rock rhythm section is irresistible.  
   
   
4. Frances-Marie Uitti, Milana Zarić, Elisabeth Harnik - Unified Field (Strange Strings)
   Beautiful chamber jazz.  “the intersection between plucked, bowed and hammered strings“ makes for remarkable music.  
   
   
5. Sophie Agnel - Learning (OTORUKO)
   Between this and her other 2025 solo album Song, Sophie Agnel seems intent on redefining what a solo piano album can be. She’s succeeded.
     
6.  Stian Larsen, Colin Webster, Ruth Goller, Andrew Lisle - Temple of Muses (Relative Pitch)
   A band with no respect for the boundaries of what is and isn’t jazz. Larsen and Webster are especially great.  
   
   
7.  Tim Berne - Yikes Too (Screwgun / OOYH)
   Berne works so well with top-notch guitarists. Here it’s Gregg Belisle-Chi, who’s up to the task.  
   
   
8.  James McKain, Damon Smith, Weasel Walter - ….seeing the way the mole tunnels… (Balance Point Acoustics / International School of Evidence)
   Ferocious free jazz/noise/whatever by great musicians.  
   
   
9. Torche! - 8 Notions De Détente (Tour de Bras)
   Éric Normand and clarinetist/saxophonist Philippe Lauzier are always great together. Xavier Charles brings his beautiful textural work from Dans Les Arbres. The whole band clicks. 
    
10. Camila Nebbia, Kit Downes, Andrew Lisle - Exhaust (Relative Pitch)
    Camila Nebbia was an unstoppable force this year, with (at least) 6 albums. She always surrounds herself with great musicians and her playing is always brilliant. 

Nick Ostrum

• Staraya Derevnya - Garden Window Escape (Ramble Records)
• Isaiah Collier, William Parker, William Hooker – The Ancients (Eremite)
• Emad Amoush’s Rayhan – Distilled Distractions (Afterday Audio)
• The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters – S/T (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
• Ava Mendoza, gabby fluke-mogul, Carolina Pérez – Mama Killa (Burning Ambulance)
• Kaze & Koichi Makigami – Shishiodoshi (Circum-Disc & Libra Records)
• Paal Nilssen-Love Circus with The Ex Guitars - Turn Thy Loose (PNL)
• Wadada Leo Smith & Sylvie Courvoisier – Angel Falls (Intakt)
• Extraordinary Popular Delusions – The Last Quintet (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
• Lingyuan Yang – Cursed Month (Chaospace Records)

 Historic/Archival Releases:

• Ansamblul Hyperion -  Conducerea Muzicală: Iancu Dumitrescu (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
• AMM with Sachiko M – Testing (Matchless)
• Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley – Flashing Spirits (Burning Ambulance)
• Roy Brooks – The Free Slave (Time Traveler Recordings)

Stuart Broomer

1. Sophie Agnel / John Butcher - Rare (Les Disques VICTO)
2. Rodrigo Amado The Bridge - Further Beyond (Trost) 
3. Nicholas Bussmann, Sven-Åke Johansson, Yan Jun - Tea-Time (Ni-Vu-Ni-Connu)
4.  Isaiah Collier, William Hooker, William Parker - The Ancients (Eremite).
5.  Angharad Davies, Burkhard Beins - Meshes of the Evening (Ni-Vu-Ni-Connu)
6.  Paul Flaherty - A Willing Passenger (Relative Pitch)
7.  Sven-Åke Johansson, Pierre Borel, Seymour Wright, Joel Grip - Two Days at Café OTO (OTOROKU)
8.  KnCurrent - KnCurrent (deep dish records)
9.  Joëlle Léandre & Evan Parker - Long Bright Summer (RogueArt)
10.  Wade Matthews, Abdul Moimême, Luz Prado - Trust from Intimacy (scatterArchive)

 Historic/Archival Release:

• Rodrigo Amado/ Chris Corsano - The Healing (European Echoes)
• AMM and Sachiko M - Testing (Matchless Recordings) 
• Evan Parker - The Heraclitean Two Step (False Walls) 

Special Events:

• [Ahmed] makes U.S. debut at Roulette as broadcast on Youtube. 

• Christian Pouget’s MAËLSTROM for Improvisers, a singular two-hour film integrating 22 free improvisers in shifting dramatic settings, more major audio-visual composition than documentary. (review forthcoming in January 2026)
  
  

Guido Montegrandi

1. Cosmic Ear -Traces (We Jazz)
2. Ebaugh Crane Presley -  Detergent (scatterArchive)
3. Bittolo Bon Grillini - Spell/Hunger (Hora Records)
4. Painkiller -  Samsara (Tzadik)
5. William Parker Hugo Costa Philipp Ernsting - Pulsar (No Business)
6. Mark Dresser Paul Nicolas Roth - Signal Blur (Earwash Records)
7. Sylvie Courvoisier Wadada Leo Smith - Angel Falls (Intakt)
8. Ava Mendoza - The Circular Train (Palilalia)
9. Allen Lowe & the Constant Sorrow Orchestra - Louis Armstrong’s America (ESP disk’)
10.  Vijay Lyer &Wadada Leo Smith - Defiant Life (ECM)
    
    

Charlie Watkins

• Joëlle Léandre & Evan Parker – Long Bright Summer (RogueArt)
• Sophie Agnel – Learning (OTORUKO)
• STEMESEDER LILLINGER + Craig Taborn – Umbra III (Intakt)
• Ebaugh Crane Presley – Detergent (scatterArchive)
• Kai Fagaschinski – Aerodynamics (NI VU NI CONNU)
• Anna Webber – simpletrio2000 (Intakt)
• Steve Beresford, John Butcher, Max Eastley – Some Uncharted Evening (scatterArchive)
• Ben Goldberg, Todd Sickafoose, Scott Amendola – Here to There (Secret Hatch)
• Peter Brötzmann, John Edwards, Steve Noble, Jason Adasiewicz – The Quartet (OTOROKU)
• Tim Berne, Tom Rainey, Gregg Belisle-Chi – Yikes Too ( Screwgun / Out Of Your Head Records)

Nick Metzger

• Alexandra Grimal & Giovanni Di Domenico - Shakkei (Relative Pitch)
• Anna Högberg Attack - Ensammseglaren (Fonstret)
• Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (Exit) Knarr - Drops (Sonic Transmissions)
• Isaiah Collier, William Parker, William Hooker – The Ancients (Eremite)
• Sven-Åke Johansson, Pierre Borel, Seymour Wright, Joel Grip - Two Days at Café OTO (OTOROKU)
• James McKain/Damon Smith/Weasel Walter - …seeing the way the mole tunnels… (Balance Point Acoustics)
• Traces - Cosmic Ear (We Jazz)
• Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters - self-titled (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
• Paul Flaherty - A Willing Passenger (Relative Pitch)
• Poor Isa + Evan Parker & Ingar Zach (Aspen Edities)

 Historic/Archival Release:

• Pan African People’s Ensemble Led by Horace Tapscott - Live at Widney High (The Village)
• Pat Patrick and the Baritone Saxophone Retinue - Sound Advice (Art Yard)
  
  

Sammy Stein

• Ivo Perelman and John Butcher - Duologue 4 (IBEJI)
• Silvia Bolognesi and Eric Mingus -  Is That Jazz (Fonterossa Records)
• Ivo Perelman and Matthew Shipp String Trio - Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms)
• Zoe PIna and Mats Gustafsson - Rite ( Parco Della Musica)
• Maggie Nicols and Geoff Eales - Beautiful Love (33 Jazz Records)
• Ed Jones/Kamil Karlsen - Liminal Spaces (Confronting Records)
• Ivo Perelman, Nate Wolley, Mark Helias, Tom Rainey - A Modicum Of The Blues (Fundacja Sluchaj)
• Ava Trio - Lunae (Tora Records)
• Han-earl Park, Lara Jones, Pat Thomas - Juno 3: Proxemics (Buster and Friends)
• Piotr Damasiewicz and the Into The Roots - Switanie (L.A.S)

Ferruccio Martinotti

• Anna Högberg Attack - Ensamseglaren (Fönstret)
• Ava Mendoza, gabby fluke mogul, Carolina Perez - Mama Killa (Burning Ambulance)
• Ayumi Ishito (featuring Kevin Shea and George Draguns) - Roboquarians vol, 2 (577 Records)
• Camila Nebbia ft. Marilyn Crispell & Lesley Mok - A reflection distorts over water (Relative Pitch Records)
• Extraordinary Popular Delusions - The Last Quintet (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
• Paal Nilssen-Love Circus with The Ex Guitars - Turn Thy Loose (PNL)
• The Sleep of reason produces monsters - self-titled (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
• Turbulence - Objections to Realism (Evil Clown)
• Sylvie Courvoisier, Wadada Leo Smith - Angel Falls ( Intakt Records)
• Zoh Amba - Sun (Smalltown Supersound)

 Historic/Archival Release:

• Cecil Taylor/Tony Oxley - Flashing spirits (Burning Ambulance)

Book:

• Daniel Spicer - Peter Brotzmann, free jazz, revolution and the politics of improvisation (Repeater) 
   

Stef Gijssels

1. John Edwards, Luis Vicente, Vasco Trilla - Choreography Of Fractures (Fundacja Słuchaj)
2. Sophie Agnel & John Butcher - Rare (Les Disques VICTO)
3. Wadada Leo Smith & Sylvie Courvoisier - Angel Falls (Intakt Records)
4. Angles 11 - Tell Them It’s The Sound Of Freedom (Fundacja Słuchaj)
5. Joëlle Léandre & Evan Parker - Long Bright Summer (RogueArt)
6. Das B - Love (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
7. Alexander Hawkins & Taylor Ho Bynum - A Near Permanent State Of Wonder (RogueArt)
8. Will Mason Quartet - Hemlocks, Peacocks (New Focus Recordings)
9. Joe Morris, Tyshawn Sorey & Peter Evans - Comprehensive (Fundacja Słuchaj)
10. 10. Amir ElSafffar - New Quartet Live at Pierre Boulez Saal 2 (Maqām Records)
    
    

Irena Stevanovska

• Błoto – Grzybnia (Astigmatic Records)
• Rodrigo Amado’s The Bridge – Further Beyond (Trost)
• Natural Information Society and Bitchin Bajas – Totality (Drag City Records)
• Cosmic Ear – TRACES (We Jazz)
• Amir ElSaffar & Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch – Inner Spaces (Ornithology)
• Taxi Consilium – Workin’ For The Other Side (Aksioma)
• Staraya Derevnaya – Garden Window Escape (Ramble Records)
• Wadada Leo Smith & Sylvie Courvoisier – Angel Falls (Intakt)
• Moses Yoofee Trio – MYT (LEITER)
• Anouar Brahem – After The Last Sky (ECM)

 

Fotis Nikolakopoulos 

1. It came out very late in 2024, for me the most exciting release for the whole year:
   Almufaraka: Peter Orins/Maryline Pruvost/Patrick Guionnet/Gaëlle Debra – Master Of Disorder (Circum-Disc, Tour De Bras)
   
   
2. with the following very close:
   -أحمد [Ahmed]* - Sama'a (Audition) (Otoroku)
   
   then, in no particular order:

• Jean-Luc Guionnet – L’ EPAISSEUR DE L’ AIR LIVE (Potlatch)
• Ben Bennett - Answers (Lobby Art Records)
• Ivo Perelman and Tyshawn Sorey - Parallel Aesthetics (Fundacja Słuchaj, 2025)
• Emmeluth- Håker Flaten- Filip - Hyperboreal Trio (Relative Pitch Records)
• John Butcher / John Edwards - This Is Not Speculation (Fundacja Słuchaj!)
• Kai Fagaschinski - Aerodynamics (NI VU NI CONNU)
• The Ancients - s/t (Aguirre Records)
• Sven-Åke Johansson, Pierre Borel, Seymour Wright, Joel Grip - Two Days at Café OTO (OTOROKU)
  
  and one reissue/archival recording:
  
  
• Ansamblul Hyperion -  Conducerea Muzicală: Iancu Dumitrescu (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
  
  

William Rossi

• Sophie Agnel - Learning (Otoroku)
• Isaiah Collier & Tim Regis - Live in the Listening Room (Vinyl Factory)
• Rodrigo Amado's The Bridge - Further Beyond (Trost Records)
• Makoto Kawashima - Arteria (Relative Pitch)
• Anna Högberg Attack - Ensamseglaren (Fönstret)
• The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters - Self-titled (Corbett vs. Dempsey, 2025)
• Angles 11 - Tell Them It's the Sound of Freedom (Fundacja Słuchaj, 2025)
• Wadada Leo Smith & Sylvie Courvoisier – Angel Falls (Intakt, 2025)
• Alexander Hawkins & Taylor Ho Bynum - A Near Permanent State Of Wonder (RogueArt, 2025) 
• Mikołaj Trzaska & Daktyle - Transient Riot (Antenna Non Grata, 2025)

Gregg Miller

• John Butcher & John Edwards - This Is Not Speculation (Fundacja Słuchaj)
• Wadada Leo Smith & Sylvie Courvoisier - Angel Falls (Intakt Records)
• Rodrigo Amado The Bridge - Further Beyond (Trost)
• Sophie Agnel & John Butcher - Rare (Les Disques Victo)
• Matthew Shipp - Cosmic Piano (Cantaloupe)
• Joe Morris, Tyshwn Sorey & Peter Evans - Comprehensive (Fundacja Słuchaj)
• Ava Mendoza, Gabby Fluke-Mogul & Carolina Pérez - Mama Killa (Burning Ambulance Music)
• Han-earl Park, Lara Jones, Pat Thomas - Juno 3: Proxemics (Buster and Friends)
• Camila Nebbia, Kit Downes, Andrew Lisle -  Exhaust (Relative Pitch)
• Stefan Schultze, Peter Ehwald & Tom Rainey -  Public Radio (Jazzwerkstatt)  

Eyal Hareuveni

• Sophie Agnel - Song (Relative Pitch)
• Paal Nilssen-Love Circus with The Ex Guitars - Turn Thy Loose (PNL)
• Tim Berne - Yikes Too (Screwgun / Out Of Your Head)
• The Ex - If Your Mirror Breaks (Ex)
• Izumi Kimura & Gerry Hemingway - How The Dust Falls (Auricle)
• Rodrigo Amado’s The Bridge - Further Beyond (Trost)
• Lava Quartet - Ethereal Chants (Fundacja Słuchaj)
• El Infierno Musical - II (Klanggalerie)
• Anna Högberg Attack - Ensamseglaren (Fönstret)
• أحمد [AHMED] - سماع [Sama'a] (Audition) (OTORoku)

Historic/Archival Release:

• Fred Frith and the Gravity Band (Klanggalerie)
• Peter Brötzmann / John Edwards / Steve Noble / Jason Adasiewicz - The Quartet (OTORoku)
• Mujician - In Concerts (Jazz in Britain)

 

Lee Rice Epstein

1. Sven-Åke Johansson, Pierre Borel, Seymour Wright, Joel Grip - Two Days at Café OTO (OTORoku)
2. Taylor Ho Bynum and Alexander Hawkins - A Near Permanent State of Wonder (Rogue Art)
3. Will Mason Quartet - Hemlocks, Peacocks (New Focus Recordings)
4. Olie Brice Quartet - All It Was (West Hill Records)
5. The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters - s/t (Corbet vs Dempsey)
6. Steve Lehman Trio+Mark Turner- The Music of Anthony Braxton (PI Recordings)
7. Han-earl Park, Lara Jones, Pat Thomas - Juno 3: Proxemics (Buster and Friends)
8. Dan Rosenboom - Coordinates (Orenda Records)
9. Larry Ochs, Charles Downs, Joe Morris - Everyday —> All the Way (ESP Disc')
10. Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio - Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms)

 Historic/Archival Release:

• Anthony Braxton - Quartet (England) 1985 (Burning Ambulance)
• Marco Eneidi Quintet - Wheat Fields of Kleylehof (Boticelli Records)
• Michael Gregory Jackson - Frequency Equilibrium Koan (Expanded) (Cuneiform)
• Tim Berne - snakeoil ok (Screwgun)
• ICP Orchestra - Live in Salzburg 1988 (ICP)
  
  

Paul Acquaro

1. Marcelo dos Reis - Our Time (JACC)
2. Marina Džukljev, Weber & Griener - Industriesalon (Trouble In The East)
3. Rodrigo Amado The Bridge - Further Beyond (Trost) 
4. Vinny Golia, Ken Filiano, Michael TA Thompson - Catastasis (Nine Winds) 
5. Camila Nebbia, Kit Downes, Andrew Lisle - Exhaust (Relative Pitch)
6. Edition Redux - Broadcast Transformer (Audiographic)
7. Emmeluth- Håker Flaten- Filip - Hyperboreal Trio (Relative Pitch Records)
8. Lao Dan - To Hit a Pressure Point (Relative Pitch)
9. Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio - Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms)
10. Wadada Leo Smith and Vijay Iyer - Defiant Life (ECM)

  Historic/Archival Releases:

• Peter Brötzmann Trio, Hurricane (Old Heaven Books) 
• Noah Howard Quartet - Schizophrenic Blues: Live in Berlin (Cien Fuegos) 
• Jean-Jacques Avenel & Daunik Lazro - Duo, Bibliothèque De Massy 13 Novembre 1980 (Fou) 
• Jimmy Lyons - Live From Studio Rivbea: 1974 & 1976 (NoBusiness)
• Bobby Naughton Trio - Housatonic Rumble: Live at Charlie's Tap (NoBusiness) 

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Two Trios

By Paul Acquaro

  

Two trios - both drums, bass and saxophone but taking their own distinct approaches to making creative, inquisitive and exciting improvised music...

 Nebbia / Banner / Andrzejewski - Presencia (ears&eyes Records, 2025)

Argentinian saxophonist Camilla Nebbia has had a banner year. Her Berlin home seems to be a hub for her multifarious activities, hitting festivals around the continent and beyond. Somehow the busy saxophonist has also found time to record a number of excellent albums that came out this year. Presencia, a recent addition to her rapidly growing discography, was captured in Berlin by the working trio of Nebbia, bassist James Banner and drummer Max Andrzejewski.

 

The trio is a collaborative effort - each musician bringing compositions and full dedication to the music. From the moment the sounds emerge, their affinity is clear to be heard. The album starts with 'Choco,' named lovingly after everyone's favorite sweet, and which begins with a 'classic' free jazz riff and then unfolds quickly into atonal smears and rhythmic forays. The follow-up track, 'Arid' begins with a plodding, rubato rhythmic figure and lightly blown harmonic tones. Invoking images of dryness and dust, the tune grows slowly through the parched and cracked musical soil. Soon, 'Lugar' practically jumps out of the speakers. The group focus is intense as Banner's bass thumps urgently, Andrzejewski's drums pulsate and Nebbia herself seems to nearly bursts with building tension. The clear, insistent melodic lines and unrelenting rhythmic drive is a cathartic listening experience.

 

The musicianship is unwaveringly strong, whether the trio is luxuriating in comfortable tonal pools or exploring the most dissonant edges of the map. The feeling one gets is captured well in the liner notes:

The recording was done in one day at Bonello Studio in Berlin after a series of European shows where the trio worked on and developed the music. Rather than striving for the best takes of every piece, this session is meant to capture a snapshot of the live experience and energy of the band. Musically, they go deep into the tradition of free and jazz improvising whilst also pushing the physical and sonic limits of their instruments...

A fantastic late Autumn release.

 

Emmeluth- Håker Flaten- Filip - Hyperboreal Trio (Relative Pitch Records, 2025)

 

Axel Filip is a versatile Argentinian drummer who is also is living in Berlin, and the The Hyperboreal Trio is a collaboration with two well-known Scandinavian musicians - Danish saxophonist Signe Emmeluth and Norwegian bassist Ingebrit Haker-Flaten. Released in early summer on Relative Pitch Records, this trio recording has something for all creative music listeners.

 

Opening track, 'Stone Cold', displays from the start the raw/refined aesthetic of the trio. Emmeluth's tone is both restrained and biting, there is an edginess to her sound. Haker-Flaten's upright bass is strongly supportive, creating a full foundation, meshing with Filip's reflexive drumming. Their music often forms through short melodic bursts, Emmeluth ping-ponging between her instrument's registers, never staying too long in any one place, while Haker-Flaten and Filip keep the energy humming. 

 

Haker-Flaten is at the helm on the next track, 'Pressurized WC', playing an extended solo intro, eventually accentuated by the others. On 'Ahuyentado' Emmeluth begins the piece before the joined by Haker-Flaten and Filip with a syncopated, fragmented groove. The playing starts tight and grows even more so as the track progresses, and by the time they are third through, the whole music structure feels pulled to the extremes.

 

The album closes with 'Capiango', which begins slowly, a steadfast bass-line providing the structure for the saxophonist to hang her note from. The drums are soft, just brushes, as the two sketch out the tracks shape. It is a fitting closer to the recording, one that is relentlessly exploratory but at the same time full of shape and structure.

 

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Phil Haynes & Free Country - Liberty Now! (Corner Store Jazz, 2025)

by Gary Chapin

Free Country is a Phil Haynes (drums) project, with Drew Gress (bass), Jim Yanda (guitar), and Hank Roberts (cello). They’ve been doing their thing for a few years with four recordings preceding this one. According to Haynes in the notes, it seemed to them that the Free Country Project had run its course, but history and the present moment sometimes make demands of us and the quartet felt the calling to regather.

The Americana subset of what once used to be called the downtown set (Bill Frisell is the most prominent example) is a peculiar thing, but one of my favorite side quests. Free Country is a through-a-glass-darkly version of an old-timey string band (new-timey?), except with unconventional arrangements of Americana and out/jazz soloing throughout.

It’s no surprise that the playing throughout is extraordinary. These are seriously accomplished musicians, and Robert’s elastic vocals serve the project excellently. What is surprising is the repertoire, what the band thinks of as Americana. Yes, there are the usual (and beloved) suspects (dressed unusually) like “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain’,” “What a Wonderful World,” and “Simple Gifts.” But also included are Motown (”RESPECT” and “What’s Going On?”), spirituals (“Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho”), and a Beatles song (Americana?). It’s a cool repertoire which, along with the originals, gives what-ya-know vs. what-ya-don’t-know an appealing tension.

It’s not an explicit protest album, but it also is. Context is everything. Repertoire means something. Along with the new recordings, they threw in especially relevant tracks from earlier recordings making a 26 track behemoth that is all weird, spark, and joy.

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Almufaraka – Master of Disorder (Circum-Disc, 2024)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

Using the voice as a main instrument is not something new obviously. Using three voices (here by Gaelle Debra, Patrick Guionnet and Maryline Pruvost) and a drum set (here by Peter Orins who runs Circum-Disc) is, even today that everything has been done and experimented with, still a choice that differentiates this cd from the experimental milieu, one that could even be described as radical.

The voice of course still is the primary and easiest way for any human (and non human) being to express itself. Modern pop culture and the eagerness of the society of the spectacle for myths have created a clean cut version of what the human voice should sound. Trying to overcome all this is not an easy task. Quite the contrary I believe, such a choice of instrumentation still raises many eye brows within the field of experimental music.

While listening to Master of Disorder it easily came to my mind Themroc, and anarchic French movie from the early 70’s by director Claude Faraldo. There the great Michel Piccoli plays a modern caveman who, rebelling against modern society never talks, but only makes noises. Listening to this CD, the listener can certainly and easily make comparisons.

But apart from the labeling of the music my aforementioned comparison creates, all eight tracks of the cd are excursions into the unknown guts of the human voice, with big doses of humor, laughter, joy and anger. Peter Orins with his drumset play the role of the glue that holds this fragile collision together, while, at the same time, he seems like the shaman that initiates the ritual.

The music, if you want to call it like that, on Master of Disorder, is far away from almost everything that is considered experimental nowadays, but heavily incorporates magic words like freedom and improvisation. In each track I had the cathartic feeling of being totally unable to comprehend where this would go next. The combination of the sheer power by the three vocalists and their willingness to experiment in every second of the cd make it a joyous but also so urgently needed recording that goes against any kind of mannerism.

The CD came out really late in 2024 (bad for me I didn’t review it earlier) and I listened to it in 2025. So, it has every right to fit in my best of for 2025. And it will.

Listen here:

@koultouranafigo

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Camila Nebbia ft. Marilyn Crispell & Lesley Mok - A reflection distorts over water (Relative Pitch Records, 2025)

By Ferruccio Martinotti

Five minutes to midnight but thanks to a record like this, the game of the 2025 Top Ten is still up, clear evidence of another blasting year for our music. Born in Buenos Aires, based in Berlin, Camila Nebbia is a saxophone player, composer, improviser, visual artist and curator. As described on her website, the multidisciplinary artist layers her practice through the creation and destruction of archival memory, exploring the concept of identity, migration and memory. Her work includes improvised and composed music, film creation and audiovisual performances, forming a constellation of interconnected practices. She played and recorded with many artists of the international scene, such as Marilyn Crispell, Michael Formanek, Angelica Sanchez, Randy Peterson, Tom Rainey, Patrick Shiroishi, Vinnie Sperrazza, Katt Hernandez, Kenneth Jimenez, Lesley Mok, Susana Santos Silva, Elsa Bergman, l’Arfi collective of Lyon, Joanna Mattrey, Vincent Dromoski’s Flow Regulator, Kit Downes, among others. Co-founder together with Maria Grand and Marta Sanchez of the independent record label label Lilaila, curator of the concert series “A door in the mountain”, “Disfigured Rivers” in Berlin and “Future bash reloaded”, Camila is definitely showing the difference between a player and a musician. 

We started to track her down after the wonderful, hugely overlooked record “Colapesce” by Gabriele Mitelli with John Edwards and Mark Sanders, enriched by her reeds as a key feature. Then 3 records in a row bewitched us mercilessly: “in another land, another dream" along with Angelica Sanchez; “Exhaust” with Kit Downes, Andrew Lisle and “Hypomaniac” where she teamed up with Goncalo Almeida and Sylvain Darrifourcq, turned on a spotlight on the South American musician, carving her name in the stone as one of 2025’s most shining key figures. But given that it’s not over until it’s over (to quote the Homeric Poets), at the very tail end of the year, to complete such a bonanza, here we have a brand new record, “A reflection distorts over water”, an astonishing combo with pianist Marilyn Crispell and drummer Lesley Mok. 

Crispell lent her piano to the likes of Sanchez, Braxton, Lovano, Evan Parker, Motian and Tyshawn Sorey and met Nebbia in 2016 when the pianist was in Buenos Aires for a residency, an encounter the saxophonist describes as a “transformational and deeply meaningful experience”. Three years later, in 2019, Nebbia met Mok at the Banff Centre in Canada, where they immediately began to collaborate, initiating a partnership that has evolved through a variety of shifting projects such as the collectives “Yo no sè de pajaros” and “La permanencia de los ecos”. In recent years Mok, an essential member of bands led by Myra Melford and Anna Webber, has emerged as one of the most creative percussionists on the New York scene, whether leading a tentet or sharing the duties with pianist Philip Golub in the improvising duo “Dream Brigade”. 

The making of this record is the perfect epitome of an approach to the music that finds nothing comparable with: the ladies meet up in Woodstock for dinner and the following day the new born trio set up at Nevessa Studio without any prior rehearsal. Just one composition provided by Mok (“Longing”), a few open sketches by Nebbia, the rest fully improvised and that’s it, 45 minutes of free gourmandise ready to be served on the table. As soon as the first notes start floating in the space, the sound of Nebbia’s sax is affirming itself as her own signature: breathy, warm, extroverted, intriguing and melodic, granting a mutual, enjoyable and captivating tension among the trio. The music unroll syncopated fragments, interchanged with semi-circular textures, everything is essential, smoothly balanced the tasks of piano and percussion, never self-indulgent, not a single sequence is wasted, stripped down but not algid and aseptic, on the contrary warm, emotional and ardent: call it a labour of love. “The whole trip felt like a dream, between the jet lag and the immense happiness I was feeling, everything seemed surreal. Beyond the musical experience, it left me with a deep sense of how vital true human connection is in what we do”, said Nebbia about this project. Buenos Aires calling, leave the line free!

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Jim Hobbs and Timo Shanko - The Depression Tapes (Relative Pitch Records, 2025) *****

By Don Phipps

When one thinks of great sax-bass collaborations, a few albums stand out:

• 1977’s Soapsuds, Soapsuds, an amazing duet between the late sax and composer extraordinaire Ornette Coleman and the late bassist and composer extraordinaire Charlie Haden.
  
  
• The 1976 recordings on Improvising Artists (Dave Holland/Sam Rivers Vol 1) showcasing the late great tenor saxophonist Sam Rivers and the dynamic bass and cellist Dave Holland.
  
  
• Then there’s last year’s Parlour Games, a 1991 live recording of the incredible Tim Berne on alto and baritone sax and the equally unreal Michael Formanek on bass.

And now, The Depression Tapes, where the talent and mastery of Jim Hobbs and Timo Shanko are on full display. Hobbs alternates between Lee Konitz cool, Ornette bluesy wails, and his own personal gritty style – a style that uses delicate riffs to produce piercing lines that feel contained and open at the same time. Shanko provides Hobbs with a rollicky foundation that encourages exploration while laying down his own monstrous roller coaster runs and hard bop plucks, revealing a technical virtuosity at the highest level.

One need look no further than the improvisatory masterpiece “Trials and Temptations” to grasp the excellence of this album. Here the sound of Shanko’s bass – meaty, wooden Hadenesque - shines through. As the number progresses, Shanko attacks the strings of his instrument with extreme precision. And towards the end, he is constantly on the move up and down the neck, playing inside and outside – his fingers always moving. Hobbs lets Shanko carry the piece, choosing to play above the raging river of Shanko’s sound. However, Hobbs’ wailing phrases, while melancholy, embody grace. Together, the two musicians create stunning musical poetry.

Another cut that deserves the label masterpiece is “Departure.” The sorrow expressed suggests loss – the loss of a friendship, the death of a loved one, or other goodbyes that stick in one’s gut as much as one’s head. Sorrowful in mood, Hobbs’ notes blend beautifully above Shanko’s bowing, almost like a wounded bird. The improv possesses a dignity - a perseverance despite the odds. Hobbs takes it out towards the end – an overwhelming wail of anguish. This is surely a lament for the ages.

In 1989, Hobbs and Shanko helped form the Fully Celebrated Orchestra, but this is their first duo record. The album provides a testament to their long-lived collaboration. Engaging with the present – seeing the complete and utter lunacy that governs our current world – the madness - it’s important for one’s sanity to have the music of The Depression Tapes . The duo proves that there is always a creative spark – a subtle but distinct light - in the darkness. Highly recommended. 

 

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Christer Bothen - L'INVISIBLE (Thanatosis Produktion, 2025)

By Don Phipps

Clarinetist and composer Christer Bothen’s L’INVISIBLE (in English - the hidden, unseen, or invisible) is a fascinating bluesy abstraction, music that suggests David Lynch’s Red Room – a dreamscape where things feel both oddly in and out of place – like wearing a wrong size shirt that’s still presentable. This enigmatic kaleidoscopic endeavor is sustained by Kansan Zetterberg’s expressive bass and Kjell Nordeson’s cool vibraphone and hot drums.

The music, recorded as two parts, seems maze-like. The labyrinth is deep and navigating it hints at a journey to the unknown parts of the human psyche. In “Partie 1,” Bothen quotes Ornette Coleman’s classic “Lonely Woman,” an unexpected curve ball in what feels like a cat on the prowl in some dark alley. There’s a film noir aspect to the composition – a grayness of black & white. Zetterberg alternates between individual note plucks and staggered strumming across the strings. Bothen’s clarinet rips at time but mostly its full voiced and spatial, providing an interesting counterpart to Nordeson’s abstract vibraphone phrases, phrases replete with pedal work that imparts an ethereal quality.

In “Partie 2,” Bothen begins with a repeating motif in the clarinet’s lower register while Nordeson develops his vibraphone dissonance and harmonics. Midway all hell breaks loose, as Nordeson moves to the drums and the trio pushes forward like a space vehicle launch – accelerating with rapid intensity. Bothen squeals out his stratospheric lines and the tune darts here and there like some kind of high-speed chase down a darkened freeway. Bothen then moves inside the piano, where he rummages about as Zetterberg uses his bow to create a sonic platform. Nordeson’s drums are hot here but under control. The bottom drops out –Nordeson resumes his work on the vibraphone and the trio evokes the bluesy dreaminess of a dark foggy evening.

Albums like these are to be savored. They bring one closer to mortal thoughts and beliefs, and how they all jumble together to create reality within one’s mind. Just what is a dream anyway? Where does it go and why is it many times beyond recall? Is this what Huxley meant by the doors of perception? Perhaps Bothen means none of this with these ruminations. Still, in this music one cannot escape the hidden and unseen.

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Lingyuan Yang – Cursed Month (Chaospace Records, 2025)

By Nick Ostrum

Cursed Month is the first release by guitarist Lingyuan Yang’s trio with pianist Shinya Lin and drummer Asher Herzog. From the first notes of the opener Ritual Fire, one gets the sense the rest of the album is going to big and tortuous, but also structured. Think heavy prog with idiosyncratic elements. Parts of it draw on hard rock, parts on Second Viennese School dizzying atonality (Schoenberg’s Op. 33a comes to mind), Zappa-esque warped time signatures and tempos, and Tzadik-leaning tightness and rapid-fire genre-blending. The problem is that that description makes this album sound like a muddle; it is anything but.

Cursed Month has clarity despite the bucket of techniques and styles it flings at the listener. That clarity lies in Yang’s vision, and his frequent use of pointillistic guitar cascades. Where other guitarists would fall into dense and dissonant chords, Yang doubles-down on tight staccato plinking and prismatic sound refractions. He punctures rather than threads his way through the thorny overgrowth that Lin and Herzog lay for him. For its part, the rhythm section is tight and heavy. Lin can go on tears and lay catchy melodies, but he more frequently takes over the backing role of the absent bass. Then again, I am not sure this is really missing that bass between Herzog and Lin’s pulsing clunk. Yang and Lin also entangle in tight torrents and swoops. Amidst the cacophony. Cursed Monthalso has its shimmery, brittle, and just plain beautiful moments. The beginnings of Spring Snow and The Song of the Mist are among them. However, even in these tracks, that warped prog drive inevitably takes over, and Yang stomps his pedal to unleash a stream of clicks and computer-bug stutters over Lin’s more delicate scales.

Having listened to this album on repeat over the last couple months, I am still not sure exactly what to make of it. It is dark and disorienting. It is playful and unpredictable. It fuses unlike elements in convincing ways. It is a contemporary, postmodern form of fusion in the best and least restrictive senses of the term. Through it all, one hears the haunt of the cursed month, but this trio has found a way to deconstruct, reconfigure, and redeploy what made that month, whenever and wherever it was, so cursed, and, in the end, has made a damn fine album.

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Anna Högberg Attack - Ensamseglaren (Fonstret, 2025)

By Ferruccio Martinotti

Emerged from the Viking Cauldron of the Fire! Orchestra, Anna Högberg was one the most exhilarating potions we’ve had the chance to swallow along the last 10 years: two excellent records along with her group Attack (the self titled of 2016 and the sophomore, Lena, 2020) granted her fully deserved international attention, while lateral projects such as Doglife (Fresh from the ruins, 2017) and Se och Hor (Se mig, hor mig, kann mig, 2017) confirmed the status of a real top-notch musician. Given that, as you surely know, the writers of this Blog are working hard, they, like “16 Tons” miners, dug out the 4 records as above and the concerned reviews are filed at the disposal of the readers. 

To describe Anna’s most famous patrol, Attack, what’s better than Maestro Mats Gustafsson’s words: 

“Anna Högberg as a modern free jazz standard bearer, keeping it all together, her rich alto sax leading the ensemble into layers of high octane outburst and sensational melodic variations. Her tone being able to cut landscapes open, to melt your brain as we know it. Check the two tenor sax axes out! Elin Forkelid Larsson and Malin Wattring know how to attack matters, how to structure solos and ensemble work with intense warmth and melodic beauty. Drummer Anna Lund punctuating the flow, laying fundaments of possibilities for the others. Pianist Lisa Ullen adding her thorny but detailed phrases to the picture. And then the deep sounding bass maestro Elsa Bergman with an unusual imagination of how to position her own language and bass lines into a collective of attacking free jazz”. 

It was enough, more than enough, to fall in love and become addicted to Högberg's music, however and wherever declined. Then, after the highly celebrated album Lena, Anna disappeared from the radar and what we just read/heard was that she was working as a nurse, whilst continuing to practice her instrument and seldom playing with other musicians. Bad, too bad but we kept looking over the horizon, searching for any sign of musical life. At last the news of a forthcoming album was confirmed and the fever pitch finally began to decrease: Ensamseglaren found its place in our shelves. Two pieces (“Ensamseglaren/Inte Ensam” and “Gnistran/Ematopoesi/Emlodi”) played with a brand new outfit (just Elin Forkelid as an appreciated return on tenor sax): Niklas Barno, trumpet; Maria Bertel, trombone; Per Ake Homlander, tuba; Dieb13, turntables; Alex Zethson, piano; Finn Loxbo, guitar and saw; Gus Loxbo, double bass and saw; Kansan Zetterberg, double bass; Anton Jonsson, drums; Dennis Egberth, drums. Anna, alto saxophone, as a rule. 

The mood that informs the record is of grief and sorrow for the loss of her father, the “Lonely Sailor” of the title, pictured on the record’s cover as a young boy, as she, in a very touching way, expressed in the liner notes:

”You had already put away all the nautical charts, loosened the moorings and steered out among the skerries. Mum stood waving from the jetty. You were alone, you wanted in that way. It was to be just you in the boat this time. I called out to you. I think you heard me and felt less lonely. We couldn’t carry each other anymore, no matter how hard we tried. We washed our wounds on the shore and scattered tears and rose petals in the bay”. 

The music can’t avoid these feelings and apparently does nothing to do so. 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. Music as the healing force of the universe, we’d dare to say, shouldn’t it sound too poorly banal and derivative. A true masterpiece, we firmly state.

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James McKain / Damon Smith / Weasel Walter - ....seeing the way the mole tunnels... (Balance Point Acoustics / International School of Evidence, 2025)

 

By Richard Blute 

“I’ve always been attracted to extremity in music. I started listening to free jazz at the same time I was listening to punk and no wave in the ’80s. I put them on a somewhat even keel, and although they were different idioms, I felt they were saying similar things. That’s really the core of my aesthetic—I want music to be wet with bodily fluids, a certain bloody-mindedness that’s part of my music and attitude. I want to see sweat and blood, a little pain and struggle in music. This is not a style—it’s an abstract idea applied to music, and I’m more interested in those essences.”

-Weasel Walter, All About Jazz interview, 2009.

I spent most of my teen and student years listening to hardcore punk and other extreme music. So I feel a great affinity for the quote from Walter above, and that attitude can be found in abundance on ....seeing the way the mole tunnels... by James McKain, Damon Smith and Weasel Walter. Listening to this album for the first time, I felt the same rush of excitement and the same desire to bounce around my office that I used to get when I picked up a new Dead Kennedys album.

Weasel Walter is a drummer, guitarist and composer. His most well-known band is probably The Flying Luttenbachers, which he describes as brutal prog. He has a band called Vomitatrix, whose music he describes as acid grind. He has a band called Cellular Chaos, a noise-punk band. (It’s my favorite of his ongoing projects.) He tours regularly with Lydia Lunch, legendary singer of the no-wave scene. But he’s equally at home with jazz. I saw him perform a fantastic duo with Vinny Golia. His album with Damon Smith and John Butcher, The Catastrophe Of Minimalism, is superb.

Damon Smith is one of free jazz’s great bassists. He has developed a highly expressive language for improvising on bass which is well-displayed on this album. His label, Balance Point Acoustics, is a fine repository for his music. I find myself exploring it often. Check out the album with Walter and John Butcher mentioned above, or Mimetic Holds or Groundwater Recharge, which are favorites of mine.

I’m less familiar with saxophonist James McKain, only having heard him previously on the 2024 album A Man’s Image with James Paul Nadien, Jared Radichel and Tom Weeks. It’s a fine album with the two saxes providing an intense slashing attack. It was on my 2024 year-end list, and listening to it again now, I should have ranked it even higher.

On ....seeing the way the mole tunnels…, McKain is ferocious right from the opening notes of the first track, Wrecked Brain in the Capital. Walter’s drumming is unrelenting, pushing his partners on to more and more intense music. But he can also be more subtle, adding texture to the more quiet sections, as on the track A Cloud Which Does Not Last. Smith switches back and forth between bowing and plucking his bass, so that at times he’s conversing with the sax and at times adding more percussion. What I like best about the music is that it is very much a conversation. None of the three of them are grabbing the spotlight, every note struck is in response to something their partners have played.

Fun side note. All of the titles of the album come from the poetry of German novelist, poet and playwright Thomas Bernhard. I’ve never read his poems, but I have read a few of his novels. His style could be described as lyrical ranting. He wrote in an obsessive freeform style about all the ugliness he saw in the human condition. But at the same time, there’s an almost hypnotic beauty in his writing. It can also be hysterically funny. I can hear all of those aspects of Bernhard’s writing in this great album.

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KnCurrent - KnCurrent (deep dish records, 2025)

By Stuart Broomer

KnCurrent is a quartet organized by patrick brennan, the New York-based alto saxophonist and musical explorer. Among his recent projects are a substantial book of his reflections on sound, Ways & Sounds (the book) Audio Edition, available in both print and audio download editions, and the 2023 recording by his quintet patrick brennan sOnic Openings - Tilting Curvaceous (Clean Feed, 2023), previously reviewed on Free Jazz Blog. While Tilting Curvaceous explored brennan’s complex composed cells with a conventional quintet format -- trumpet, piano, bass and drum kit supporting his work -- Kn Current is a radically different conception, setting brennan’s hard-edged, expressionist saxophone amidst a minefield of collectively improvising, amplified strings, with Cooper-Moore, more typically thought of as a pianist, on diddly-bo, On Ka’a Davis on electric guitar and Jason Kao Hwang on electric violin, an ensemble that expands the sonic field into a maze of percussive and electronic strings. brennan’s brief liner note connects the group’s informal architecture to the flexibility of the strings’ electronic resources:

“As much as common practice codifications of pitch & rhythm might enable musical architectures & connections, what about the other sounds, the ones that can’t get so glibly mapped as they fly between the cracks & boundaries? How then to interact with this spectrum if not directly? What combust here is the empathic chemistry among these extraordinarily imaginative musicians.”

A brief word of explanation might clarify Cooper-Moore’s “diddly-bo” and its life beyond the “boundaries”: it’s a bass register string instrument, held horizontally and played either as a plucked instrument or with two sticks, one used to strike the strings percussively, the other employed as a slide, creating glissandi. Fine video examples of his work with the instrument in another remarkable NYC band, guitarist Brandon Seabrook’s trio with drummer Gerald Cleaver, are available on youtube.

While Cooper-Moore still lives partially in the world of acoustic music, Davis and Hwang are often highly electronic here. The group’s startling texture is apparent immediately in the opening “slip apophatica”, beginning with a maelstrom of fluctuating electronic burbles, beeps, whirs and glissandi, a more elusive development of the proto-electronic music of Forbidden Planet, before Brennan enters as an insistently human presence, his saxophone at once convulsive, choked and explosive by turn.

The six tracks that follow are evenly split between longer quartet tracks and shorter works by the strings. The shortest of these is “Dné Wol”, a perfect miniature, little more than a minute long, a solo by Cooper-Moore revelling in the diddly-bo’s bass register, as low as a piano’s but with the pitch-bending, shape shifting, percussive possibilities of an electronically enhanced bass. “micro circus” begins with Davis’s guitar. Already a glittering transforming presence, it’s eventually joined by the wobbling wonder that is the diddly-bo’s unique character and by Hwang’s violin. “Must be ‘Who Say’” is a string trio that begins with Hwang’s sound sufficiently distorted that only the shaping trace of the bow distinguishes it from Davis’s guitar which eventually achieves its own electronic pre-eminence.

A sense of dueting shapes the quartet track “polyneuroreceptive”, propelled initially by brennan’s joyously liberated alto and Cooper-Moore’s propulsive bass lines, gradually adding Davis and Hwang to the mix, the technological transformation of the strings ultimately suggesting not automation but a richer human universe. 

ṣumūd صمود , at 9:22 the longest track, its title Arabic for “steadfast perseverance”, is also the most developed, from Cooper-Moore’s opening compound of sounds, suggesting at once electric bass and microtonal percussion, gradually adding Davis’s highly electronic guitar, then brennan’s twisting, shifting alto explosion, to ultimately conclude with a solo by Hwang in which the violin’s character is genuinely electronic, not merely amplified, extending to eery sounds that are at once electronic and liquid.

The concluding “tewetatewenni:io” embraces a contrasting, near-acoustic dialogue, shifting from the pre-eminence of diddly-bo and warmly vocal, lyric alto to Davis’s subtle guitar lines and the ultimate collective design of the full quartet. It’s a remarkable ultimate transition, the cloak of alien mystery gradually evaporating to reveal a relatively clear and joyous empathy in now near-natural voices. The whole program is a rich and resounding success.

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Poor Isa + Evan Parker & Ingar Zach - Untitled (Aspen Edities, 2025) *****

By Nick Metzger

Incredible music here from the Belgian duo Poor Isa - augmented this time round with Evan Parker on saxophones and Ingar Zach on percussion. This is the third release from the duo who work mainly in banjos and woodblocks following “let’s drink the sea and dance” in 2019 and “Dissolution of the Other” in 2023. It may sound like a meager palette, and it is, but the duo work serious witchcraft with these tools. Their sorcery spans the gamut from knobby twang to scratchy percussive to eerie daxophonian and to some quietly introspective and surprisingly meaty nodules in between. The players are Frederik Leroux and Ruben Machtelinckx , both prolific collaborators and both primarily of the guitar persuasion. Here their surreal avant-folk project (for lack of a better term) is transported to a different plane altogether with the addition of Evan Parker and the prolific Norwegian drummer Ingar Zach . The elements they bring to bear make for a remarkable listening experience, one full of unique soundscapes and novel amalgamations that feel veritable and emotive in their revelations.

The album is split into five very different pieces with Poor Isa providing their broadest recorded stylistic variations thus far. The first track is called “Clearing” and it begins with eerie floating tones that overlap and dance, seemingly exchanging words. The piece is sparse and warm, slowly building a warbly stasis that Parker interrupts with some of his most careful and probing playing to date, each note feeling properly considered and carefully placed so as not to scare away the fish. On “Ply” Parker plays in popping, honking, squawking birdsong against a spare mixture of shifting rhythms and skeletal, chiming folk drawl. There’s a sharp, simple melody played by one of the banjos that recalls the abrupt toll of a grandfather clock, with the patter of preparations and woodblock sounding like clockwork.

Zach provides sparkling percussive elements as accompaniment for a simple and sombre banjo melody on “Untitled 7”. This whole album is steeped in a heady melancholy that is embodied remarkably well on this piece. Its contemplative pacing yields some headspace to the listener and sets up a quickening on the next track. For “Two way” Poor Isa goes full clawhammer over an understated, yet propulsive rhythm from Zach. The chicken scratching rolls like a river without restrain, coursing in alternating melodies and scuffed drumming. Then Parker joins in and the thing becomes truly extraordinary. Some carefully considered language again from the master reedsman, showing just how versatile and acquiescent his playing can be. The final piece makes up a third of the runtime and is called “Hewn”. Parker starts off delicately with bright serpentine passages played at a half, and then full speed, rousing the banjos into wispy, fingerpicked melodies that Zach accents with bells and chimes. The track is a languid exploration of the sounds on tap for this fellowship and closes the album in careful and pensive fashion.

It’s an excellent record and a unique listen that I’ve been hard pressed to find a good contemporary for. All things said it’s one of the best albums I’ve heard this year. It all works so incredibly well that the disparate elements arrive as multiplicity rather than discord, although there’s still plenty of the latter to be had herein. If I have a single complaint it’s the run time which is a lean 29 minutes - however, the damage done in this brief interval is so evident that the gripe is a very minor one. In fact, had any more meat been on the bone the essence may not have come through as richly as it does here. This doesn’t feel pre-conceived at all and has the energetic drive and personal stylistic deviations that are the very signposts of a group completely lost in the magic of their creation - the quartet huddling close to protect the flame. Highly recommended.

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Angles 11 - Tell Them It's The Sound Of Freedom (Fundacja Słuchaj, 2025)

By Stef Gijssels

Martin Küchen's Angles Ensemble must for sure be one of Sweden's most appreciated mini-big-band, with a recognisable sound that is truly unique. Sorry, I mean Europe's most appreciated larger ensemble. Every album is one to look out for, and this one does not fall short of the high expectations. 

In three long tracks, the music is as infectious, as exhilarating, as enchanting, as compelling as ever. 

The band members are Johan Berthling on double bass, Alex Zethson on Fender Rhodes, Juno 106, Mattias Ståhl on vibraphone, soprano saxophone, Konrad Agnas, Michaela Antalova and Kjell Nordeson on drums, Susana Santos Silva and Magnus Broo on trumpet, Josefin Runsteen on amplified violin, Eirik Hegdal on baritone and alto saxophones, and Martin Küchen on tenor and soprano saxophones. Fans will immediately notice the triple drums and the double trumpet line, as well as the addition of a violin to the line-up. 

As mentioned on previous reviews of the band, its messages is a political one, comparable to "the people united will never be defeated". It expresses a deep sense of injustice, drama and sadness about the fate of oppressed people that can be overcome by collaborating, by rallying them together - the real people - in a joint movement to stand up, heads raised and tackle the enemy with the confidence and energy of the collective power, here captured perfectly by its title "Tell Them It's The Sound Of Freedom". This is music that can only be fully appreciated in a live context. This is music that requires a large audience to share with, to become part of it, to be included into its total sound. 

Even if the music is avant-garde, its roots go very deep into the communal music of village bands and funeral bands. Its sweeping themes, the brilliant arrangements and the powerful soloing are all here again in full force, in full energetic power. This is music that can only be fully appreciated in a live context. This is music that requires a large audience to share with, to become part of it, to be included into its total sound. A Dutch author of the 19th Century described art as the "most individual expression of the most individual emotion". In the case of Angles, it's almost the exact opposite. It's art as "the most collective expression of the most collective emotion". 

The title song starts the album, slowly, sadly, with a madcap violin to start the soloing, followed by the weeping saxes, before falling back into perfect harmony of the entire orchestra, that leaves some space for the bass. Single instruments, like the vibes or the violin add exquisite touches to the ensemble's slowly progressing theme. The piece is only 11 minutes long, but for me it could go on forever. Incredibly moving. 

"A Night In Schwabistan" pumps up the tempo, starting with some chaotic rehearsal sounds, until the "one, two, three, four" starts the entire band in full power, uptempo like a steamroller in a car rally. The title refers to the region of Swabia in Germany, as it is sometimes called humorously, referring to the middle-eastern countries with names ending in '-stan'. Zethson's keyboard is the instrument that keeps the entire piece together, producing mesmerising rhythmic chords throughout. Again, the arrangements and collective changes in the composition are brilliant and overpowering. 

The final track, “Youngblood Transfusion,” opens with a drum intro that leads into the main theme, woven together by interlacing saxophones. The band eases in gracefully, settling into a beautiful mid-tempo groove. What follows is a sequence of deeply sorrowful solos—first from the saxes, then from the violin—before the piece disintegrates into sparse sonic fragments… only to regroup and surge back with full force, horns united and aimed toward the future in a moment of triumphant energy.

But just as quickly, the music collapses again, yielding to another burst of drumming and clearing the space for Susana Santos Silva’s solo—powerful, though in my view not quite loud enough—calling the full ensemble to rise, join her, and propel a grand finale that is relentless, unstoppable, joyful, and overwhelming.

Another winner.

Everything is great: the compositions, the arrangements, the playing, the freedom, the vision, the lack of perfection that makes it so human and close. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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