Torche! - 8 Notions De D​é​tente (Circum Disc/Tour de Bras, 2025)

By Stef Gijssels

A little over seven years after their debut album, the French-Canadian-Austrian quintet Torche! release their second album. The band consists of Xavier Charles on clarinet, Michel Côté on percussion and synth, Franz Hautzinger on amplified trumpet, Philippe Lauzier on bass clarinet and alto sax, and Eric Normand on electric bass, objects and loudspeakers. Readers familiar with the music of "Dans Les Arbres" and other minimalist electroacoustic ensembles will definitely like this music too. 

All musicians perform the eight improvised pieces as a group, creating sound sculptures based on minimalist sonic bits. The short and slow-paced sounds coalesce to something coherent and - strangely and miraculously - with a good sense of direction. Their art is organic in the double meaning of the word: it arises spontaneously, yet it also gives impression of being alive, like the sound of unknown creatures and plants even, growing and interacting on each other's space. 

The album's title means "six notions of relaxation", the song titles translate as "impression of outside", "subarctic manatee", "retting", "collecting ashes", "water-repellent", "spun light". The word "Lamarissage" does not mean anything, and the last title "Ronde à Retard" does not mean anything either. 

They demonstrate absurdity, impossibility or surreal images, reflecting the light and serious playfulness of the music, its inherent tension and irrational relation to reality. It stands on its own, without the need to be founded somehow in our world. It has its own logic, dynamics and meaning. It is "L'Art pour L'Art" (art for art's sake) in its purest form, without necessary reference to anything else than itself. 

It forces the listener to stop thinking, to stop looking for meaning, but to become part of the music itself. Appreciate what you hear, let yourself be overwhelmed by what you hear. Be the music. 

Intense music. An intense listening experience.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

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Sven-Åke Johansson (1943 - 2025)

Photo by Cristina Marx/Photomusix

By Martin Schray

Only a drum kit stood on the wooden floorboards. Sven-Åke Johansson, as always dressed like a gentleman (which is how he saw himself) in an elegant three-piece suit and with his hair neatly combed back, began his “The Cucumber Piece” with what has become standard extended percussion playing - until he reached for two cucumbers hidden under a dish towel. Like a merchant in a Bertolt Brecht drama, he weighed them in his hands and gently slid them over the drumhead. Then he gently struck both cymbals, which trembled softly and reverently. There are many excellent drummers in the improvised music scene, but there was only one Sven-Åke Johansson. Now the great sound explorer, percussionist, avant-gardist and personified all-round artist has died somewhat unexpectedly.

Born in Mariestad, Sweden, in 1943, Johansson began as a drummer in dance bands, but turned to jazz early on and played in groups around Bobo Stenson from 1965 onwards, as well as with the American pianist Ran Blake in Spain and France. Above all, however, he quickly established contacts with the rapidly developing German free jazz scene. Johansson was involved in the first recording of the Globe Unity Orchestra and in 1967 he became a member of Peter Brötzmann’s trio with Peter Kowald, with whom he recorded For Adolphe Sax and later he also played in the saxophonist’s octet on the seminal Machine Gun. In 1968, he moved to Berlin and was involved in the development of the European version of free jazz and free improvisational music with all the alpha dogs there: Peter Brötzmann, Peter Kowald, Manfred Schoof, and Alexander von Schlippenbach. With the latter he often played in a duo, a project that lasted for a very long time. Additionally, Johansson played the accordion and recited spontaneous poetry. He was among the first percussionists who used extended materials for percussive effects. In the 1980s he was part of the Bergisch-Brandenburgische Quartett (BBQ) with Ernst Ludwig Petrowsky, Hans Reichel, and Rüdiger Carl. Carl Reichel, Wolfgang Fuchs, Radu Malfatti, Maarten Altena, and Norbert Eisbrenner, among others, were members of his Northern European Melody and Improvisation Orchestra. With Ulrich Gumpert and Axel Dörner and lots of other musicians he played in his Ol’ Man Rebop Ensemble.

However, it would be far too simplistic to reduce Johansson to his work as a free jazz drummer. He was much more interested in sound in general, calling what he explored and performed with insatiable curiosity “new new music.” To this end, he sprinkled peas on the drums and banged cardboard, he demonstrated the graininess of sandpaper and its ability to crunch, he drummed his way through the world on telephone directories and sang some of his beautiful, intricate and quirky songs with his own unique accent to the accordion strapped on backwards. He showed everyone who loves or hates ordinary drum solos that the most exciting sounds are not the ones which are played, it’s the ones that are left out, the ones we have to create ourselves. His 1996 concert for twelve tractors in Leipzig, which was performed again in 2013 at Klangspuren in Schwaz/Austria, is legendary. Together with Alexander von Schlippenbach, he initiated “Über Ursache und Wirkung der Meinungsverschiedenheiten beim Turmbau zu Babel” (On the Cause and Effect of Disagreements in the Tower of Babel), and he also created musical productions such as “Die Harke und der Spaten” (The Rake and the Spade). He has composed pieces for wind turbines, for cardboard boxes, and one of his compositions from 2020 is entitled “Komposition für 10 + 1 Eierschneider” (Composition for 10 + 1 Egg Cutters). He gave precise instructions on how to pluck them or play them with a plectrum while placing them on a wooden box open at the front. Together with Jan Jelinek, a musician and producer of electronic music, he had a duo that symbolized the successful connection between the old free jazz school and a new generation of electronic and noise musicians. As a total concept artist, Johansson tried to steer the audience’s perception in a certain direction using various means, only to then confront them with an unexpected twist in the musical or visual events. The fact that his performances always radiate into the visual realm is part of his concept. One could go on and on about him and his art. Apart from all the things mentioned he was also a photographer, a designer and a label owner (SAJ).

Sven-Åke Johansson’s oeuvre is full of outstanding music, music that has helped to define improvised music in the last 60 years. The above-mentioned For Adolphe Sax (BRÖ / FMP 1967) and Machine Gun (BRÖ 1968 / FMP 1972) belong to the European free jazz canon. His duo recordings with Alexander von Schlippenbach on FMP are superb: If you ask me I would choose Live at The Quartier Latin (1976), Kung Bore (1978), Drive (1981) and most of all Live 1976/77 (2001). His duo with saxophonist/clarinetist/accordionist Rüdiger Carl shows a different musical side of him,“Intermezzo für zwei Akkordeons“ on Fünfundreissigvierzig (FMP, 1986) is folk music in a weird and wonderful sense. With Schlippenbach, Carl and Jay Oliver on bass he recorded jazz classics, another one of his unexpected interests. Night and Day (FMP, 1985) is pure joy and a bow to the classics of the genre. A lesser known album is E.M.T.’s Canadian Cup Of Coffee (FMP/SAJ, 1974) with Alfred Harth on saxophones and clarinets and Nicole van den Plaas on piano, a very beautiful and humorous recording. The Bergisch-Brandenburgisches Quartet with Hans Reichel, Rüdiger Carl and Ernst Ludwig Petrowsky Free Postmodernism - BBQ with Fred Frith - USA, 1982 (SAJ, 2020) was only released a few years ago, but especially this album is a great discovery from the wild and outer fringes of free jazz at the beginning of the 1980s. Of his newer releases, Stumps (Ni-Vu-Ni-Connu, 2022) with Pierre Borel on sax, Axel Dörner on trumpet, Joel Grip on bass, and Simon Sieger on piano is worth being mentioned. For each track the “Stumps“ theme is repeated four times, forward then backward, a typical Johansson idea. Also, Rotations (Trost, 2025), his trio with Ignaz Schick (turntables) and Franz Hautzinger (trumpet) is a nice summary of Johansson’s interest in sound exploration. Finally, I’ve always liked his collaboration with Jan Jelinek, maybe because it’s very unusual for the man’s music (then again, the word “unusual“ does not really fit for Johansson’s art). Puls-Plus-Puls Edition Moers (Moers Record Store Schallplatten, 2021) is my favorite of the two albums they released.

With Sven-Åke Johansson, improvised music loses a consistent and distinctive voice that has significantly expanded the understanding of sound, form, and artistic expression over decades. It’s hard to imagine the musical world without him.

Watch the short and very insightful documentary with Johansson and the two Danish improvisers August Rosenbaum and Lars Greve:

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Louis Moholo-Moholo (1940 - 2025)

Photo by Peter Gannushkin

By Martin Schray

It’s difficult to imagine the situation for black musicians in South Africa in the 1960s today. Apartheid, the racist system of legal separation between blacks and whites, determined people’s lives, including art and music. Black and white musicians were not allowed to perform, rehearse, or travel together. Concerts in mixed ensembles were illegal. Politically charged music - such as African rhythms and free jazz - was considered “subversive” and many musicians were monitored by the state, their music banned or restricted. Black musicians needed special passes to move around their own country. International tours were hardly possible, and when they did happen, they were mainly for privileged white artists. Many black musicians therefore lived in poverty and had no professional platform for their art. Louis Moholo-Moholo had to deal with this reality at the beginning of his musical career, which is why he and his band, the Blue Notes, decided to leave the country in order to be able to perform freely. It was not until a little over 40 years later that he returned to his homeland, where he has now passed away at the age of 85.

Tebogo Louis Moholo-Moholo grew up in a township in Cape Town. In the vibrant jazz scene of this neighborhood, music became a place of expression, resistance, but also joy and hope. There, Moholo-Moholo met Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim), among others, and was a co-founder of The Blue Notes, a band that soon became the artistic spearhead of South African modern jazz. The Blue Notes consisted of black and white musicians, which was forbidden. Public performances were therefore dangerous, their music, which opposed restriction and racial segregation, was increasingly seen as provocative. In 1964, the band fled into exile in Europe, officially under the pretext of participating in the Antibes Jazz Festival in France. In reality, it was an escape from censorship, police surveillance, and oppression by the apartheid state. From South Africa, they traveled via France to London, where they sought and ultimately found asylum. “We played because we wanted to live - and we lived because we could play,” the drummer said in retrospect about this time.

Soon, Moholo-Moholo became part of the British free jazz scene, playing with Chris McGregor and his Brotherhood of Breath, with Dudu Pukwana, Evan Parker, Keith Tippett, and many others. He formed a particularly close musical friendship with Irène Schweizer, the Swiss pianist. In Europe, he played with all the important free jazz musicians, and several of his recordings with the West German FMP label are considered classics. His playing was explosive yet melodic, rhythmically rooted in African tradition but open to anything experimental. He combined township grooves with European avant-garde jazz - a musical act of decolonization. Logically, however, he was never “just a musician.” He understood his art as a political act, which was almost inevitable given his background. Apartheid, exile, the loss of his homeland – all of this resonated in his music. He refused to provide “entertainment”. His concerts were acoustic manifestos - loud, raw, demanding. In 2004, he received the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver, one of South Africa’s highest cultural honors, and in 2005, after more than 40 years in exile, he returned to Cape Town on a permanent basis. There, he taught, played with young musicians, and continued to fight for cultural and social justice.

Louis Moholo-Moholo was at home in all kinds of formations, and his characteristic drumming always enriched any group he played with. This makes it difficult to single out any particular albums from his extensive oeuvre. However, the first two Blue Notes albums, Blue Notes for Mongezi (Ogun, 1976) and Blue Notes in Concert Vol.1 (Ogun, 1978) are definite must haves. Almost everything he published on FMP is outstanding: The Nearer The Bone, The Sweater the Meat (FMP, 1979) and Opened, But Hardly Touched (FMP, 1981) with Peter Brötzmann on saxophones and clarinet and fellow expat Harry Miller on bass, are spectacular albums and only due to Miller’s untimely death there are just these two recordings by this trio. In general, Moholo-Moholo was great in duos with pianists - with his friend Irène Schweizer on their self titled album (Intakt, 1987), which includes “Free Mandela!“ and “Angel“, signature compositions of the two. In this context one must also mention No Gossip (FMP, 1982), a piano duo recording with Keith Tippett, and Remembrance (FMP, 1989) with the great Cecil Taylor. Messer (FMP, 1976) and Tuned Boots (FMP 1978), his trios with Irène Schweizer and Rüdiger Carl on saxophone, must not be forgotten either. A personal favorite of mine is Tern (FMP, 1983), his trio with Keith Tippett and Larry Stabbins on saxophone. But what is more, he was a great bandleader as well. Among his many recordings, Spirits Rejoice! (Ogun, 1978) certainly stands out. It’s his octet album with Harry Miller and John Dyani on bass, Keith Tippett on piano, Evan Parker on saxophone, Kenny Wheeler on trumpet, and Radu Malfatti and Nick Evans on trombone - a killer lineup that delivers everything it promises. A perfect example of his interest in teaming up with younger musicians is his quintet Five Blokes with Alexander Hawkins on piano, John Edwards on bass, and Jason Yarde and Shabaka Hutchings on saxes. Uplift the People (Ogun, 2018) is just a great album.

On June, 13th, the exceptional man died after a long illness. With this extraordinary drummer the last surviving member of the legendary Blue Notes has died. So, this also marks the end of a musical era. “Louis was more than a pioneering musician - he was a mentor and a friend. As a drummer, composer, and fearless voice for artistic freedom, Louis inspired generations through his groundbreaking contributions to South African and global jazz,“ the Moholo-Moholo family said in a statement.

“Spirits Rejoice!” the family concluded - a reference to the legendary octet album and a tribute to a life that has linked music and political resistance like few others. May he rest in peace.

Watch Louis Moholo-Moholo live with Irène Schweizer at the 29th outfit of the Unlimited Festival in Wels/Austria in 2015:

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the ocean within us - Pascal Niggenkemper, Sakina Abdou, Gerald Cleaver, Liz Kosack

In this new project, the ocean within us, double bassist Pascal Niggenkemper explores groove and rhythm by weaving together tight structures and free improvisation. He’s joined by drummer Gerald Cleaver, keyboardist Liz Kosack, and saxophonist Sakina Abdou, who together form a group that brings both precision and freedom to the forefront. Here’s a short snippet of this dynamic group.  

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Matthew Welch and Dan Plonsey - Eudimorphodon (Kotekan 2025)

By Gary Chapin

You may not often think of bagpipes in free jazz improv, but if you do, it’s a good idea to think of them in terms of behemothic, pre-avian termagants stomping through the primordial wetlands— unearthly ferns growing up to their shoulders, a wet-heat, high O2 atmosphere guaranteed to provoke an altered state—and that’s what piper Matthew Welch and sax guy Dan Plonsey do on this recording.

The pipes/jazz disconnect comes from the fact that pipes are a very traditional and regimented (really, there are pipe regiments) and, if played correctly are pretty dang diatonic, with only an octave +1 in its range and the two drones (a 1 and two 5s) slamming you into the tonic center. Here’s the thing, ideally there is but one way to play the pipes correctly, but Welch (and a few others) have discovered that there are an unlimited number of ways to not play correctly. Just like with a target: a limited number of ways to hit, an unlimited number of ways to miss—but when you miss the target, you're still going to hit something, and the something on Eudimorphodon is pretty magical.

Welch and Plonsey paint in jagged, vibrant, microtonal, loud, blunt, articulate smears, evoking the flying monsters of the pre-human world. Eudimorphodon is an early pteranodon, as are the other creatures namechecked in the set list. These are thematic and vibe cues to the music, synaesthetic comp and improv prompts that—when you hear the music—make all kinds of sense. Making sense doesn’t make it less unnerving, though. There’s something about the sheer quantity of sound the pipes produce—as many limits as the instrument has, only 9 pitches and three drones (supposedly), but when you stand next to a piper playing it’s infinite, transcendent. Like a strong river pushing at you, functionally never ending—just like those drones. And speaking of the drones, they may in some contexts, lock you into a tonal center, but the way Welsh plays, they create almost geological anchors with which all of the microtonal possibilities create unique relationships.

Fiercely interesting stuff. As Plonsey writes in his remarks, “The song of the soaring, swooping Eudimorphodon could not have been more eerie and thrilling than that of bagpipes and saxophone together.” Honestly, I can’t imagine any set of instruments more suited to, say, Albert Ayler’s aesthetic than these two. It’s spiritual, scientific, metaphorical, old, and new, and it cleans out your pipes. Five stars.

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John Edwards / Mike Gennaro / Alex Ward - Activity (Copepod Records, 2025)

By Martin Schray

It’s amazing that these musicians have never played together as a trio before. However, they know each other well from various projects and all three have been part of the London improv scene for a long time. Alex Ward is known for playing both guitar and clarinet masterfully, in this trio he limits himself to the clarinet (but he is also part of Thurston Moore’s current London band, for example). The Canadian drummer Mike Gennaro first appeared on the free jazz scene in 1996 with a solo album, a courageous decision for a drummer, but it also testifies to his self-confidence. He became better known through Port Huron Picnic (Spool, 2000), an excellent trio with Max Gustafsson and guitarist Kurt Newman. Finally, John Edwards completes something of a first class cuvee from the London jazz vineyard: the bassist has been shaping the London improvisational music landscape as one of its most active members since 1995, and his live performances are always an event, especially because then you can see the extraordinary ideas he comes up with when he uses the body of the bass as a complete playing surface.

These three musicians don’t need any warm-up time on Activity. From a standing start, they organize an intense, lively, back-and-forth, sometimes pulsating interaction that makes use of some structural forms such as culminations and retardations, but they unfold and shape them in free communication to the exclusion of common formulas, conventions and stereotypes. The fascination of their instrumental conversation stems primarily from their openness: No melody, no meter dictates the direction here - the discourse develops freely. The wordless, direct rhetoric of this conversation, as unbound as it is coherent, also bears witness to a lightning-like grasp and extraordinary intimacy, but does not spare confrontational traits: Impulsive insistence, vehement counter-speech, disruptive interjections are all part of the repertoire in a fundamental and substantial way.

But none of this is arbitrary. As is usual in improvised music, the instrumental techniques are extended, the sound spectrum is enriched with noises. Edwards in particular always comes across as if it were not a matter of playing the instrument, but of living with it, of having a kind of conflict-laden, symbiotic relationship. Caution should also be exercised with regard to the supposedly random disposition of this music created in the moment: Everything proceeds with imaginative consistency, despite aleatoric elements and great tension in some passages. The air is deliberately let out of the improvisation, the focus is directed to the most minimalist tones and the smallest shifts. The aim, however, is to directly rekindle the fire of playing. Joy of playing, intensity, authenticity - that’s what it’s all about. Then again, it was clear that these masters would succeed in doing this brilliantly. A very recommended album.

Activity is available as a CD and as a download.

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Wolf Eyes and Anthony Braxton

Wolf Eyes and Anthony Braxton- Difficult Messages Vol. 5 Live in Los Angeles (Self Released, 2024) 

Wolf Eyes x Anthony Braxton - Live at pioneer works, 26 october 2023 (ESP Disc, 2025) 

By Nick Ostrum

Disclaimer: I absolutely loved Wolf Eyes and Anthony Braxton’s 2006 live release Black Vomit. It was a monster. Seeing the erstwhile collaborators were at it again, I simply had to listen.

As you might expect if you’ve followed Wolf Eyes’ hundred-plus releases over the years (or if you just pick up an album intermittently here and there as I do) Difficult Messages Vol. 5 Live in Los Angelesis a different beast from Black Vomit. (Of course, the same could be said in relation to Braxton’s extensive catalog.) Wolf Eyes, now shorn to the core duo of John Olson and Nate Young, are still pummeling away into a noisy abyss, but they have evolved over the last twenty-years. The harrowing metal is gone. The wall-of-black-noise is pushed to the background in favor of clanky DIY electro-atmospherics. For his part, Braxton wails like rending steel as Olsen and Young catch, manipulate and layer his lines, apparently in real time. (Braxton’s long-term relationship with Supercollider doubtlessly prepared him well for this.) At times, such as the end of Difficult LA Three, the music sounds howling overlain with a dirge to some long-lost group of passengers caught in the steerage of a sinking ship. They have to be lost in this case, as the foggy steampunkt aesthetics take what could be punch-in-your-face harsh noise and rein it back to something more subtle, less assaultive, and less clear. The sound evokes something of memory, or the past, or some haunting present. (As I wrote that, I just heard Braxton mimic a fog-horn 3:51 into Difficult LA Four, then again and again, breaking through the hiss and thud that form the backbone of the track. There must be something to this idea of mental haze and the struggle for clarity.) At a concise 25 minutes, Difficult Messages leaves the listener wanting more.

Live at pioneer works, 26 october 2023is that more, ranging from the smoldering ambient textures to ferocious and abrasive flareups. This one, like Black Vomitbefore it, made my ears ring, but only at points. Much of this comes from Wolf Eyes, who has long basked in that extreme, though with less fervor lately. Braxton contributes his singular toolbox of clucks, honked overtones, and tight and uniquely spiny scale-runs. He also spends a lot of time off his horns, listening to the dark Lost-in-Space environments Olsen and Young scape. Olsen and Young are credited with electronics, vocals (Young) and pipes and harmonica. The latter two must account for some of the additional saxophone lines that pop up in various places to counter and complement Braxton’s. The ultimate effect, however, is much like that in Difficult Messages, wherein someone seems to be capturing and redeploying snippets of what Braxton has played. The result is disorienting, transportive and, well, cool.

So, that’s it. Two more albums from a collaboration that was likely conceived of two decades ago as a one-off event. It worked the first time, and it works on these recordings, as well, just with less abrasive combativeness. That can happen over time, as flavors settle and deepen, heads calm, and attentions shift from shock to nuance. And, as these albums attest, that evolution can be a good thing, especially when the aggressions of twenty years ago are not entirely abandoned, but, as here, harnessed and transformed.

Difficult Messages is available as a download from Bandcamp. At some point, a hand-painted box-set of four hand-cut picture disc 7”s was available, too, but those enviable days have unfortunately passed.

Live at pioneer works, 26 october 2023is likewise available on Bandcamp as a CD and download. (The LP of this release, albeit in a less elaborate package than Difficult Messages, is already sold out on Bandcamp, though other outlets seem to have copies.)

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Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio - Armageddon Flower (Tao Forms, 2025)

By Sammy Stein

Imagine. The world has self-destructed. Armageddon. People were begging the powerful to think, the bullies to rein in their power, and those who have everything to share with those who have nothing. They didn’t listen. Greed, power, desire, and a compulsion to control everything continued unabated until eventually Armageddon happened. Not a surprise, not unpredictable. Now there is nothing left. All is dark and still.

Apart from a single flower. Among the dark, hidden deep within the rubble and detritus of what was once a beautiful world, is a flower – once named in binomial Latin with a genus and specific epithet, but now simply the Armageddon flower. Her body unfurls slowly, tentatively seeking the last tepid rays of sunshine that filter weakly through the dust and sediments that swirl above the Earth.

Like angel rays, shafts of light caress this delicate little flower. The rays deliver not only light but also sound. The energy the flower needs to grow relies not only on earthly components for photosynthesis – carbon dioxide and water, but also on the energy music provides. At first tiny and insignificant, her petals tightly furled, the little flower begins to bloom, striving toward the light, phototropism compelling the leaves and stem upwards, geotropism pulling the roots deep into the soil, anchoring her to the Earth, seeking out nutrients that remain, allowing the flower to grow ever stronger.

The power of this music enables the flower to grow and bloom ever larger, her golden petals casting a glow of hope and wonderful colour across the Earth.

Sound like a fairy story? Maybe, but this album was created in a dream-like state, and the musicians felt truly drawn to create something far greater than Mankind’s weaknesses and compulsions had allowed.

The music has a power of its own. Ivo Perelman and the Matthew Shipp Trio are the perfect vessels to channel this force. The Matthew Shipp trio comprises pianist Matthew Shipp (with whom Perelman has made over 40 recordings), bassist William Parker, and violinist Mat Maneri. All have performed and recorded together. The trio is teamed with Perelman, who brings the music together with his tenor saxophone, and like the others, shows fearless exploration and intuitive interpretation.

Improvised music delivered by inexperienced musicians can convey nothing to the listener but the awkwardness of a musician not understanding how they and their instrument are a vessel whose purpose potentially has a higher calling than any teaching can give, if only they immerse and subject their spirit to what happens when they interact with others. Here, then, for anyone, is the ultimate lesson in doing that.

On ‘Armageddon Flower’, each musician brings their immense experience, understanding, and connection to each other and those who listen truly. The lengthy tracks have time to develop, discuss, and seek an unfolding of the layers to enlighten and inspire.

The intensity of this music is almost shocking – and so it should be, based as it is on the possibility of Mankind’s self-destruction and seeking to understand what lies ahead in the eternity that awaits us all.

From the beginning of civilisation, Womankind (and Mankind) has been struggling with the inevitability of their death, and many philosophers have considered the destructive nature of our species. In this music, the destructive sits alongside hope, the ultimate beauty and power of even the tiniest scrap of life left, to flourish, blossom, and scatter darkness aside, as it grows in power.

All four musicians are fearless in pursuit of perfect communication. On Armageddon Flower, the impossible is possible; what is out of reach is close at hand, and what was lost is found.

At times, it feels not like the Matthew Shipp Trio with Ivo Perelman, but a well-melded quartet.

As ever, the music is not set in time or length, and the conversations differ in intensity and emotion, but each is expressive. ‘Pillar of Light’ is a non-stop confluence of different streams, patterns, timing, and responses, particularly between Shipp and Perelman – something they naturally fall into as like-minded musicians. Storytelling is their forte, and on this track, the stories are urgent and essential, but the ultimate quietude is felt by everyone.

‘Tree of Life’ is intense, with billowing waves of sound that enfold the listener, carrying them as they take various sonic pathways leading who knows where. Shipp’s intensity on piano, coupled with Perelman’s tranced screeching at one point, feels like they are going to run out of notes. Ultimately, the conversation is brought back, the other musicians are included, and Maneri’s delicately positioned phrases create a texture and depth, along with Parker’s intuitive bass, so the music becomes fulsome and rich. Shipp and Perelman achieve an almost telepathic state where the piano lines echo and then contrast with the sax lines.

‘Armageddon Flower’ sets out as a powerful track, with staccato chords pumping from Shipp alongside melodic lines from Maneri and Perelman, before it evolves into a chorale of sounds with each instrument suggesting movement, another retracting and tracing another possibility, ideas exchanged, interwoven and discussed in this intimate and intense conversation – it feels like four artists of different styles decided to create a sonic mural with the essence of each of their art. Just beautiful.

‘Restoration’ is a dream of a track, with gentleness, contemplative elements, and an overarching sense of finality, as the title suggests, of restoration to peace and a grounding of the spirit.

Armageddon Flower is an emotive album, but it is also exquisitely musical. Four musicians of this calibre could have chosen to seek solo recognition, dominate, or lead, but this is never the case. Leads are swapped, responses given, and there is a sense of true communication.

Amid the spontaneity, the quartet never loses harmonic groundings. There is not only the close relationship and symbiosis of the musicians but also evidence of their differences in approach, interpretation, and responses to sonic suggestions.

After over thirty years of playing together, separately, in duos, ensembles, and many different combinations, it is impossible not to be surprised that new perspectives can be heard in this music. It is as if the musicians, in spending time apart, then coming together, bring new learning and experiences, which are shared in music. This is deeply intense, madly evocative, and supremely well-worked music.

Ultimately, the best way to try to understand what music means to musicians is to ask them. Of this recording, Perelman says,

“This album is a landmark. I will probably not record again after this, the way I used to. I think I have reached the ultimate result with this band.

The reviews have been outstanding. Luckily, many reviewers hear the importance, relevance, and uniqueness of this band, which propelled its effectiveness. Those are words from the musicians and critics, not just mine.

The Armageddon Flower is the flower I believe will be left after self-destruction. That is how gloomy and dark I felt when I made this. Although the music brought me a lot of joy, I have been following a lot of World politics, which is awful.

Many will understand how demineralised soils are, how vegetables are poor in nutrition compared to how they were just a few decades ago, how the health of the World’s population has declined, and how World health authorities manipulate facts and studies to be able to sell medicines that are not effective at all but cause more side effects. All that. So I felt very dark, and I think the world situation, as I am describing it, propelled the session to achieve its intensity. It is so intense that it is unbearable. At the same time, it is the freest album I have ever recorded. We all agreed. Matt Shipp can’t quite believe how free this is. The rhythm is so pliable and mercurial, it is ridiculous. I have never heard anything like it. And it is not just me saying this, I wasn’t even there. It was my fingers moving, channelling forces that were beyond my control. It was a dream – I woke up and the album was done. The same goes for everybody else. We feel incredibly proud and incredulous about how this album came about. I know I am always excited about my projects, but this is the one. This is a once-in-a-lifetime project.”

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Ivo Perelman: Leo Records Backcatalog Reissue

By Paul Acquaro 

 

With the reissue of Leo Records catalog digitally by Burning Ambulance, a total of of 68 albums that saxophonist Ivo Perelman released with the label will eventually be made available. To explore the bounty, or at least to get a taste, I asked the saxophonist to do the dubious task of picking out five recordings that he felt stood out in some way and to talk about his picks and what they mean to him. 

1. Sad Life (1997) 

 

Paul Acquaro: The first one is Sad Life from 1997 with drummer Rashid Ali & bassist William Parker. What struck me immediately is that this is the rhythm section from the FMP release Touchin' on Trane from 1993 with Charles Gayle. How did this recording come to be and what does it mean to you now?

 

Ivo Perelman: I used to see Rashied at Bradleys (an East Village piano bar in the 90s) but never dared talking to him as I was so in awe of his playing. One day, I bumped into him on 14th street and started to talk and couldn't help but ask if he would do a trio CD with me and William, with whom I had been playing for a while. He promptly agreed.

 

The studio session was transcendental! I traveled back in time when Coltrane was alive and felt that creative powerful energy that fueled many of his sessions with Rashied.

 

 

 

2.  Seeds, Vision and Counterpoint (1998)

PA: Next, we have Seeds, Vision and Counterpoint from 1998 with Dominic Duval on bass and Jay Rosen on drums. I suppose one thing that sticks out to me is that Duval and Rosen are a tight duo and with say Joe McPhee perform as Trio X among other configurations. On listening, I noticed that your tone is a little different here, a bit sharper and concise than on Sad Life, am I just making this up? Anyway, how did you get involved with this duo and what sticks out to you about the album?

 

IP: Seeds Vision and Counterpoint took place at a tiny rehearsal/recording studio in Long Island and the idea was to just get together with Duval and Rosen and play some since we had never played before. They had spoken to me a few days before the session and we decided to do it in Long Island near Duval s home.

 

This session was explosive from the get go and it started a long series of concerts and CDs. We had an instant, natural exchange and non-stop flow of ideas (the sharp tone of the sax was duo to a series of sound studies I was interested at the time). 

 

3. The Edge (2013) 

PA: Third, we have The Edge from 2013 with pianist Matthew Shipp, bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Whit Dickey. This is like the crème de la crème of the New York creative music scene. I couldn't help notice the explosiveness of the opening track 'Clarinblasen.' What was it like playing with these three and why did you choose this album for the short list?

IP: I chose The Edge with Bisio, Dickey and Matthew Shipp to be in this short list because it started a series of albums investigating Matthew Shipp in quartet situations. Whenever Matthew Shipp is in a quartet classical quartet with sax, piano, drums and bass, he turns it into a Matthew Shipp Quartet experience, and it's a beautiful thing. He plays slightly differently depending on the members of the quartet. That one in particular is the classic Matthew Shipp Quartet, I would say, and we did a second one because I felt that was very fertile terrain for further investigation and it was me testing my powers, I would say against, like you say, a classic creme de la cremecreative group of musicians in New York.

So, keeping up with the concept of Matthew Shipp and a jazz quartet, I changed one at a time. Instead of Michael Bisio, I had another bass player, and then instead of Whit Dickey, I had Gerald Cleaver and I kept moving around, but what triggered that investigative period was that first album, The Edge. 

 

4. Reverie (2014)

PA: Now, we're looking at the expressive Reverie from 2014 with vibraphonist and pianist Karl Berger (who works only the piano on this album). You have at least one other recording with Berger, The Hitchhiker. Berger was a very influential figure in the improvisational music world, including with his organization Creative Music Studio which continues today under the direction of Billy Martin. What was it like working with Berger and what about this recording helped make this wonderfully subjective list?

IP: The duo with Karl Berger on piano disarmed, me, disarmed. I was ready for more notes, more harmonies, density, but his playing was so light and lyrical and beautiful that I dropped my guns and just gave myself to the music and surrendered to the simplicity, the lyrical beauty of his notes and phrasing. It led me, like never before, to a kind of a lyrical pursuit in that gorgeous doesn't mean corny or commercial. Gorgeous is just gorgeous. The melodies floated around like snowflakes on a beautiful, sunny winter afternoon. He was truly remarkable musician, very generous, very open minded. We just shook hands, said nice to meet you, and started playing. And there were some pieces, some of them were in C-minor that I still remember the feeling of and how they affected me. That particular session changed, changed my playing forever.

Whenever I feel a Karl Berger moment with whomever else I'm playing, I let it flow. I let it take possession of my playing, and I honor and cherish it. He taught me that, he was a great master and a great teacher even when he was only playing. 

 

5. Callas (2015)

PA: The album Callas from 2015 with Shipp is one of the many duo recordings you have made together. Our former contributor Colin Green wrote about this album when it came out, writing "There’s no doubt that on this album Maria Callas has inspired a heightened sensitivity to things that are often overlooked, providing a springboard for some truly remarkable playing. It’s a masterclass in the control of dynamics and subtle shading." Can you tell us about the importance of Maria Callas to your playing and what this album means to you?

IP: Callas played a very important role in my development as a musician because at the time I was suffering from uh throat problems, I was over practicing the altissimo register and doing it wrong.

I had the sessions with the therapist who suggested I start to study vocals and opera singing with someone specialized in opera singers who had the same problem. I did get rid of the problem, and I also learned a lot about music. I started to play Callas’ music and got into some various arias, and it added a lot of subtlety to my playing. So, I phoned my partner Matthew Shipp, who is always the best counterpart to share my discoveries with, because Matthew is so open to anything. He's such a wonderful wide-ranging musician, and his music covers the whole gamut from Maria Callas to Charlie Parker to everything in between.

So, this was the beginning of a very important segment of my career. Callas is remarkable because I was listening to her day in day out and even though I didn't exactly play the arias or the melodies, one is reminded of her pieces in someway. Somehow, I played like she sang. It is a truly remarkable album. 

 

 

While it is nice to have this chance to look back, Perelman is an artist always moving forward. Tomorrow, Sammy Stein will review his next release, Armegeddon Flower with the Matthew Shipp String Trio.

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Blurt - The Mecanno Giraffe

Blurt, under the auspicious leadership of Ted Milton, has released a single, 'The Mecanno Giraffe', ahead of a new album. 

A combination of steady beats, Milton's spoken poetic lyrics, sublime free sax playing, and deliberately off-kilter guitar that adds nuance to this music that lifts the soul.  

As ever, Blurt remain outside genre classification, but blend rock and free jazz in ways that reach into the depths of all that is good about music that refuses classification and remains resolutely unique. The only guarantee about this music is that Blurt will make you smile. - Sammy Stein

 

Ted Milton on saxophone and vocals 
Steve Eagles on guitar 
David Aylward on drums 
Video provided by Sam Britton (Coda to Coda) 

All things BLURT 

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Deutscher Jazz Preis ... 2025 Nominees

By Paul Acquaro 

 

Founded in 2021, the Deutscher Jazz Preis is a prestigious nationwide award in Germany that honors musicians for their contributions to various facets of jazz, celebrating exceptional artistry, innovation and influence. The jury is comprised of journalists, educators, musicians and organizers involved with jazz in Germany and the nominees - all 76 of them - are in some way active in the country's vibrant musical scene. In the end, there will be 22 winners who will receive the prize and 12,000 Euros in prize-money, in fact, even the nominees receive 4,000 Euros. Not shabby.

 

The list of nominees include many musicians who are covered here on the Free Jazz Blog. Previous year's winners included Alexander von Schlippenbach, Oliver Steidle, Sylvie Courvoisier, Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky, Günter Baby Sommer, Jeff Parker, Moor Mother, and James Brandon Lewis, among many others. You can check out the current list here.

 

The prize winners will be selected June 13th and so it seemed like a good of a time as any to check out some recordings from some of the nominees. Full disclosure: neither myself nor the Free Jazz Blog have any say or sway in the selection. Additionally, there is no claim -- in any sense -- that this is a balanced and thorough overview of the nominees' recent output. 

 

So, let's dig in. For the first set of reviews, I turn to Argentinian born, Berlin-based saxophonist Camilla Nebbia. a musician who seems to be everywhere these days, playing and recording at a feverish pace. Something that I feel we can be thankful for! 

Camila Nebbia and Angelica Sanchez - in another land, another dream (Relative Pitch, 2024) 

in another land, another dream is a duo album that Nebbia recorded with pianist Angelica Sanchez from late last year on Relative Pitch. Recorded live at the small studio/performance space near the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn in 2023, the album is an intimate affair that shows the two musicians seamlessly connecting at a rather deep musical level. Sanchez’s playing is refined, her sometimes minimal lyricism is  complimented by Nebbia’s bold, expressive tone. The opening track, 'In a Land Before,' begins with spacious voicings from Sanchez and spiraling lines from Nebbia. It grabs the listener right away. The track moves from such lyrical forays into deep exploration during its 9-minute lifespan, switching without pause from scratching of the strings inside the piano and breathy sounds from the sax to an uptempo melodic explosions. The six tracks that comprise the album brim with intensity. 

Camila Nebbia and John Hughes - The Myth of Aether (s/r, 2024)

Another gem from Nebbia that showcases her vibrant tone, this time with Hamburg based bassist John Hughes. Recorded live at Berlin's Kühlspot - an artist atelier and performance space in the creative Weissensee district of Berlin - the album is an intimate affair that really highlights both the saxophonist's and bassist's versatility. Opening track 'desenmarañando rapido' (unraveling quickly), does kind of what it says in the title, but a lot more too. It begins with Nebbia's robust playing that quickly ... umm ... unravels into an atonal melody, complimented by Hughes' expressive pizzicato lines. It really is, however,  less of an unravelling than a game of high speed chase, with the two musicians' keenly intertwined lines and astute listening at play. For a contrast, 'Tectonic Shift' begins with high distorted harmonics on both instruments, and again, astute interplay, but now in a more exploratory mode. The title track  takes its time to materialize and their extended techniques lead the two to a fragmented finale. 

 

Camila Nebbia, Dietrich Eichmann, John Hughes, Jeff Arnal - Chrononaux (Generate Records, 2024) 

Chrononaux finds saxophonist Nebbia and bassist Hughes within a larger ensemble, bringing in pianist Dietrich Eichmann and drummer Jeff Arnal. The international mix of American, German and Argentinian musicians comes together in an explosive, yet melodic, combination. Again, Nebbia's full, hearty saxophone playing compliments Hughes' strong, precise phrasings. Eichmann adds another powerful voice to the mix, with angular and musical phrases, as sharp and incisive as thickly harmonic. Arnal brings an energy to the stewing brew that is just as decisive and pugnacious as is required. The digital album contains two long tracks. The first track, at 25 minutes, begins by knocking your socks off and the second, clocking in at an hour and three minutes, doesn't really allow you to put them back on. So, just be still and let the music whisk you away.

 

Camila Nebbia / Leo Genovese / Alfred Vogel - Eyes to the Sun (Boomslang Records, 2024) 

This trio featuring Nebbia sees her with fellow Argentinian Leo Genovese on piano and Austrain Alfred Vogel on drums. The recording was born from a meeting of the saxophonist and drummer in Berlin and led eventually to the addition of Genovese. Known for his work with Esperanza Spalding and the late Wayne Shorter, Genovese also seems quite at ease in the free jazz setting as well, adding a rich layer of harmonic and rhythmic drive to Nebbia's ever inspired lines and Vogel's textured and insistent drumming. The track 'Glint' is a perfect example of the group's dynamism. At times quite melodic, starting with a subdued and expressive introduction from the saxophone, abstracted but lush chordal movement from the piano and rhythmic suggestions from an intense snare drum, the piece grows denser and denser through impressionistic rhythmic and melodic lines. It is almost hard to believe that this is all free improvisation, as the musicians all seem quite focused on creating a sturdy musical structure. 'Glow,' the track that follows immediately begins with Vogel creating a foundational rhythm, though a quite agitated one, over which Nebbia and Genovese - who has now switched to the saxophone - duet, or maybe duel. The vying tones become quite forceful, before finding ways to accommodate each other. The title of the album, and all the track titles, refer to an experience that Vogel had after being diagnosed with cancer in the weeks following the recording session in Buenos Aires. His battle and recovery lead to him seeing life in a new light. A truly stunning recording. 

 

Ingrid Laubrock - Purposing the Air (Pyroclastic, 2025)

Brooklyn based, German saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock has been quite busy in recent years (and in the years prior), releasing a very diverse selection of recordings, from the high octane free-jazz trio with drummer Tom Rainey and bassist Brandon Lopez (No es la Playa, Intakt, 2023), to the dark hued electronics/saxophone duo with Cecilia Lopez on Maromas (Relative Pitch, 2024) , to the avant garde    construction of Monochromes (Intakt, 2023) with saxophonist Jon Irabagon, harpist Zeena Parkins and Rainey, and many more. On Purposing the Air, the saxophonist takes a much different approach: she is the composer, not the performer. Built around the human voice, Laubrock takes the poetry of New York poet and educator Erica Hunt, and sets the work Mood Librarian – a poem in koan to 60 miniatures. It's a compelling work that draws the listener in close, and one that will require much deep listening thereafter. The recording features vocalists Fay Victor, Sara Serpa, Theo Bleckmann, and Rachel Calloway along with cellist Mariel Roberts, pianist Matt Mitchell, guitarist Ben Monder and violinst Ari Streisfeld. 

 

Luise Volkmann - Rites de Passage (nWog Records, 2023)

Luise Volkmann is a young saxophonist from Colonge, Germany who has also been quite active in recent years, building a reputation for both her playing and composing. Rites of Passage is not her latest recording, that would seem to be the self-released Punk Jazz Sessions (2025), but it is an early major statement from the artist. Recorded over the course of several years with different musicians and in different settings, the work is offered as a socio-political statement as much as a musical one. According to the liner notes, it is "music of resistance and transition. It contrasts the life in which we settle with a utopian space that has yet to be established." For brevity sake, let's stick to the sound, which this album is indeed about. Volkmann, here, is more composer than player, taking the rich array of tones from orchestral instruments and mixing them with electronic processing and sculpting. The result is a tonal journey that freely mixes genre and mood, composition and improvisation. 

 

Bill Frisell, Kit Downes and Andrew Cyrille - Breaking The Shell (Red Hook Records, 2024) 

 

British pianist and organist Kit Downes has called Berlin his home for the past several years and can be found sometimes playing the various church organs that dot the city when he's not tending to his international musical and teaching career. He can also be found playing pipe organ on this compelling and oft meditative release with guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Andrew Cyrille. It begins with the whistle of the organ of St. Luke in the Fields New York church in the West Village on 'May 4th,' in which there are incidental buzzings from Frisell's primed and ready guitar and one can feel the mood brewing. When Frisell finally joins, he is in an atonal mode, his fragile, shimmering cobweb notes enmeshing Downes' wheezing tones and Cyrille's light rhythmic tappings. By the next track, 'Untitled 23,' things are in motion. The three are in free exchange, Downes' adoption a more focused sound. The following, 'Kasei Valles,' finds the trio in a much different mode, the organ is a vessel of sound, growling and groaning, sort of a building terror. Only towards the ends do we hear some guitar making its way into the space. A tune like 'El,' on the other hand, seems to dip into the abstract Americana that Frisell was exploring on his early 90's albums like Have a Little Faith. Throughout, Cyrille shows how a sensitive touch on the drums, brushes, gentle snare, can offer so much to the music.

Felix Henkelhausen Quintet - The Excruciating Pain of Boredom (self, 2025)

Young people these days, seriously, how can you be bored? The entire world of knowledge, that Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy that we once only dreamed of, now exists in everyone's pocket. We just don't quite use it as well as Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent. So, this boredom that Henkelhausen speaks of in the title of his new, live recording must be somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Just listen to the first few tracks of the album, there is simply no time to be bored, it cooks from the get-go. Henkelhausen's previous album, Deranged Particles (Fun in the Church, 2024) is a nominee for album of the year and if this new release is any indicator, it stands a good chance of winning. Bringing his compositions to life are saxophonists Wanja Slavin and Uli Kempendorff, drummer Leif Berger and pianist Valentin Gerhardus - who also provides an essential component with live-processing. The musicianship is top-notch and the energy is as well. Perhaps the title's meaning can be inferred through what the bassist/composer writes in the notes to the album: "The compositions have their own distinct character and over the course of this nearly 60-minute album, paint a rather dark picture that strongly correlates with my emotional state during that time." Though I cannot speak to how Henkel hausen was feeling at the time, I don't think it is darkness that is communicated by the knotty melodic statements and the rich rhythmic textures, rather it is a depth and mature completeness in the work. 

 

Aki Takase & Daniel Erdmann - Ellington (enja, 2024)

Duke Ellington's importance and influence on jazz is beyond reproach. From composition to performing to shaping the history of the music, there is a deep well for the duo of Berlin-based, Japanese pianist Aki Takase and Paris-based, German saxophonist Daniel Erdmann to draw from for their explorations. From reverent readings to explosive expropriations, the pair treat the compositions with tasteful reverence and invigorating reinvention. For example, the haunting simplicity of 'African Flower' is retained, Takase providing an effectively minimal comping for Erdmann's evocatively melodic solo, and then into her own gently unfolding solo. While on 'Caravan,' the two hit on the tension in the melody expertly and then launch into fiery improvised passages. There is a lot between these gems, like the great 'Don't Get Around Much Anymore' and the quaint swing of 'It's Bad to be Forgotten.' The album ends with a heartfelt rendition of an homage to the maestro, namely Charles Mingus' 'Duke Ellington's Sound of Love,' leaving a simple, single tear of bittersweet joy on cheek. Ellington is a nominee for album of the year and another good choice.

Bex Burch - there is only love and fear (International Anthem, 2023)

Londoner Bex Burch, who, as I understand it, lived and worked in Berlin for a time, released there is only live and fear in 2023 on International Anthem. The album features a roster of the label's artists, including woodwindist Rob Frye, drummer Dan Bitney, trumpeter Ben LaMar Gay, bassist Anna Butterss and violinist Macie Stewart. The album is a compelling exploration of rhytmic textures and minimalist melodies that defy easy categorization. Drawing from avant-garde jazz, folk, and minimalism, the album’s intimate moments sit comfortably alongside more expansive passages, making for a generally relaxed listening experience along with rewarding jolts of energy. 

 

 

Continued Reading...

Some other nominees this year include albums and artists that have been reviewed over the past year on these pages. Here are some links... 

• ØKSE - ØKSE (backwoodz Records, 2024) (album of the year)
• Lina Allemano (for brass)
• Moses Yoofee (for piano)
• Nick Dunston (for strings)

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AngelicA 2025 Part 3: Basta Alora, Fine Alora

By Andrew Choate

This is the third part of a three-part review of the full 35th edition of the AngelicA festival in Bologna. The first part can be read here ; the second part there.

Unless indicated otherwise, photos are by author

May 26, 2025

Centro di Ricerca Musicale/ Teatro San Leonardo – Bologna

Wacław Zimpel & SAAGARA

Wacław Zimpel - electronics, clarinet
Giridhar Udupa - ghatam, vocals
Aggu Baba - khanjira, vocals
Mysore N. Karthik - violin
Camilo Tirado - sound technician

Speaking of music that radiates both the calm and the whirlwind within, enter SAAGARA. The four performers in this decade-long collaboration sat cross-legged on a raised platform, draped in colorful, loosely worn fabrics, and produced a vivid amalgamation of ancient and modern musical practices. Wacław Zimpel’s electronic sequences, generated live from his computer, served as a kind of digital śruti—a tonal center—but one embellished with rhythm and occasional glitch. Think of Praed’s electrified Arabic hyper-pop filtered through the lush digital excess of Romanian manele, but using Indian source music as the palette. Add to that two outrageously gifted live percussionists, Mysore N. Karthik’s smooth, grounded and sentimental electric violin, and Zimpel’s often jazzy, multiphonic clarinet. Weird. Good weird. Great weird. Weird weird. These were the moods the music moved through – not genres.

 

Wacław Zimpel & SAAGARA. Photo by Silvio Camassa

The soundscape layered clarinet over dense, percussive ornamentation, all framed by ever-present, ornate electronics. It felt like this band was grappling with how to honor tradition amid the onslaught of digital noise – and their answer was: groove with it. Fast, synchronized vocal passages (like swarakalpana and korvais) unfolded in complex rhythmic patterns, punctuated by an unruly stream of digital flurries – from Wurlitzer-style keyboard loops to turntable-like scratches. The crowd was into it. The sixty-ish woman beside me filmed several extended (10+ minute) sequences on her phone, each capped off with a satisfied “bellissimo.”

Giridhar Udupa, who co-wrote the music with Zimpel, played ghatam like it was a full drum kit and a sacred object at once. During one song, he rocked it back-and-forth in rhythm toward his chest to mute it, and the depth of its resonance became even more pronounced in that suspended moment just before it was covered. He coaxed an astonishing variety of textures from it: crisp clicks from knuckles and nails, booming thumps from his palms. The fusion of rhythmic and melodic ideas from Western and Carnatic traditions didn’t land in any clear genre – and didn’t need to. It moved in ways that the grateful audience found instinctually joyful. The intuitions guiding the musicians to create this hybrid require no conscious explanation or prior knowledge when the result is so immediately recognized and beloved.

May 27, 2025

Centro di Ricerca Musicale/ Teatro San Leonardo – Bologna

Piccolo Coro Angelico

Arianna Carletti, Agata Casari, Arturo Vespignani, Aurora Tuveri, Clelia Fontana, Cordelia Vonmetz, Federico Cattabriga, Giordano Brembilla, Giulia Masotti, Ida Guidotti, Leonardo Igor Provvisionato, Lucia Carbone, Maya Schipilova, Tea Fidanza

Angelica Foschi - piano
Francesco Serra - electric guitar, acoustic guitar
Giovanna Giovannini - direction and coordination
Silvia Tarozzi - conducting

Molecole, Bruno Lauzi
Flakes, Steve Lacy, Tiziana Simona
Distratta, Silvia Tarozzi
Latte e biscotti, Piccolo Coro Angelico, Silvia Tarozzi
Peace, trad., arrangement Giovanna Giovannini
Verdi Prati, George Frideric Handel
Discese tulipano, Mirco Mariani
Le cose bella, Piccolo Coro Angelico, Silvia Tarozzi
Aldo, Luciano Berio

This performance marked the fourteenth appearance of the Piccolo Coro Angelico at the festival. The children’s choir rehearses once a week from October through May to prepare for this moment. The theatre itself was transformed – decorated with the kids’ own drawings, paintings, and collages of trees. Onstage, they wore white lab coats personalized with buttons, doodles, and whatever configurations their imaginations allowed.

Piccolo Coro. Photo by Massimo Golfieri

I especially appreciated Molecole, the opening number: a chorus of competing animal sounds, followed by bouncy, jovial lyrics and a return to the barnyard for a feast of animaliciousness.What followed was a well-considered program of eight more songs, combining playful textures—windy whooshes, wild laughter—with moments of proper choral beauty. One young gentleman delivered an impeccably polished solo during Peace, arranged by the choir’s patient yet determined director, Giovanna Giovannini.

Le cose belle, one of two original pieces developed by the choir and their inspiring conductor Silvia Tarozzi, felt like a real hit: Serra’s guitar riffs were instant hooks, and the choir’s counterpoint—with voices split into sections—gave the arrangement real depth. I could hear the kids in the audience behind me yelping and dancing in their seats. After the encore—some things must remain secret—I caught one of the performers with a look of pure, stunned joy on her face, like a deer caught in the headlights of her own sudden emotion. One of the many quiet miracles this festival has been offering for decades.

May 28, 2025

Centro di Ricerca Musicale/ Teatro San Leonardo – Bologna

Mariam Rezaei

Pat Thomas

Mariam Rezaie + Pat Thomas

Pat Thomas. Photo by Massimo Golfieri

One of the characteristics that makes Pat Thomas a legendary musical voice, to my ears, is the sly tricksterism he slides into his music—little samples (if he’s on electronics) or phrases (if on piano) dropped into an otherwise logical progression, signaling the many planes he’s operating on. Tonight was no exception. His opening electronic set jostled between wet, scribbled samples, blasted phonetic wriggles, clangy belltower resonance and quick-fade blister pops. Spaceship-landing intaglio mystified into backward-vocal woodland hoots. His solo felt a bit abbreviated—maybe due to the back-to-back-to-back ergonomics of the evening, with no breaks—but every moment counted.

Mariam Rezaei’s turntable solo, however, took things to another level – and then another dimension. She began with what sounded like isolated spins of mild ’70s rock licks, in the vein of Buffalo Springfield or Little Feat. Her gradual layering of these electric guitar riffs started inquisitively, then grew more purposeful, as her sequencing refracted those riffs through a prism of rhythm and texture, thereby extracting magnetic friction, blooming resonance and a ghostly urgency. She was drawing us closer to the music, like a consummate storyteller – then zap! she incorporated the second turntable. And with that came an outrageous splatter of manipulated pitches, chunked noise and fast-paced, twisted micro-cacophony.

Talking with the sound crew after the gig, we universally agreed: this moment—and everything that followed—was the apex of the festival. She had built such a powerful foundation of sound that the second turntable—calculatingly introduced for maximum multidimensional explosion—felt like an epiphany. If most turntablists, even great ones, begin with two turntables, Rezaei makes you feel the difference between one and two – which, in her hands, is seismic. Gerarda came up with a perfectly accurate and Italian nickname for Rezaei: the Madonna of the Turntables.

Mariam Rezaei. Photo by Massimo Golfieri

Thomas seamlessly joined her onstage—no pause, no stop—and dove his piano straight into the whirlpool of her relentless flourishing. His presence instantly amped up the ante, the way centripetal force escalates as one plunges into the heart of a vortex. Vinyl crackles were overemphasized into percussive chaos while Thomas bounced springily from melody to chord tangling. He knows how to turn a phrase into a tapestry. Rezaei reached Amacher-like levels of room-vibrating frequency before diving into some glorious clutter-funk, and Thomas zoned in on Love for Sale-era Cecil Taylorisms to plomp everything along.

If she’s the Madonna of the Turntables—and she is—then Thomas is the Prophet of the Piano.

Photo by Massimo Golfieri

May 29, 2025

Centro di Ricerca Musicale/ Teatro San Leonardo – Bologna

The Locals

Alex Ward - clarinet
Evan Thomas - electric guitar
Pat Thomas - piano
Dominic Lash - electric bass, double bass
Darren Hasson Davis - drums

Goddamn, this band was good. Whatever spark Mariam Rezaei ignited the night before, The Locals fanned into full flame tonight. First off, it’s deeply satisfying that Anthony Braxton—who’s long made a practice of reinterpreting standards—is now having his original work turned into standards. And with such love. And funk. I mean: this rhythm section could power a continent. The first piece was full-on dirty post-structuralist jive-bop. When this band dismantles a building like it’s a storehouse of good jams, it’s not  just one neubauten that falls – it’s the whole neighborhood. 

The Locals. Photo by Silvio Camassa

The second tune began more abstractly, texture and wash, but you can’t keep Braxton’s harmonic complexity—or his soulfulness—down for long. (Why don’t more people talk about the soulfulness in his music? It’s right there . This band emphasized it.) The third number felt like a blaxploitation soundtrack crashed into a 1950s jazz club and ordered an ice-cold white wine, on the rocks. Alex Wand’s brilliantly bastardized clarinet scrawl complemented Pat Thomas’s clustered bangs and pounds at the piano. But those bangs and pounds themselves were threaded with angular lyricism – imagine Henry Cowell duetting with Andrew Hill. Evan Thomas’s spring-loaded guitar lick—I swear it was repeating tutto bene, tutto bene, tutto bene —was buoyed by Darren Hasson-Davis’s hi-hat solo: a perfect fusion of sophistication and down-to-the-bone meatiness. Even this slow piece hit hard. And when that languid electric bass doom drops? It’s a full flooring of the senses. What a band, what a great idea, what execution.

After the set I walked a few blocks to hear Uzeda perform at a nearby cinema. I’d never seen them live before, but I listened aplenty back in my university days in Chicago, where it felt like the entire city was reoriented by the release of Shellac’s At Action Parkin 1994. Uzeda—all the way home in Catania, Sicily—clearly had been too. As I sank deeper into their set—jagged guitar, stop-start rhythmic mayhem, unhinged and expressive vocals, and deep, dark bassness—the thoughts the thoughts in memoria Albini went from a low hum to an overt admission. Uzeda let me mourn and celebrate him in a way I hadn’t since he died.

A tear fell while I held my beer, nodded my head and cavorted in the back like “Il Porno Star.” For a moment, I imagined Albini singing from the head choir stall at the Certosa di Bologna, backed by intarsia that could’ve easily been a Shellac image.

I wish they could’ve played AngelicA – it would’ve been a perfect fit for their theater. The crowd at the cinema was overly dispersed and semi-somnolent, aside from those of us dancing in the back; at Teatro San Leonardo we could’ve packed the room and given Uzeda the reception they deserved.

An update, while we’re on the subject of visionaries: Chris Cutler’s Probes series, which I mentioned in the last installment, is no longer being supported by MACBA (though all the episodes are still online). He’s recorded nine more—done and unreleased—and is at work on the next. He needs a new sponsor: someone with educational or institutional footing, so the series can remain free to the public and legally navigate the copyright issues involved in playing back so much recorded work. So, where my academic avant-gardists at? I know you’ve still got your revolutionary charisma, “fighting the system from within” – well, here’s your moment! Flex those connections. Hit me or Chris up and we can make it happen.

May 31, 2025

Centro di Ricerca Musicale/ Teatro San Leonardo – Bologna

Doppio Duo VasiPacorig ZavalloniZanisi
Vincenzo Vasi -vocals, theremin, drum machine
Cristina Zavalloni - vocals
Giorgio Pacorig - piano, rhodes electric piano, korg MS20 synth, effects
Enrico Zanisi - piano

SENZA VOCE (dal dentista)

Quartet
El Mirar de la maja(E. Granados/F. Periquet)

Zavalloni/Zanisi
From Canti Polacchi op.74: Wiosna / Zyczenie (F. Chopin)
 I Wonder as I Wander (JJ Niles)

Quartet
Papà ha la bue(E. Pasador/C. Zavallone)

Vases/Pecoring
Non credo / Brutto (V. Vasi) Mai ti dirò (C. Villa) Kensington Gardens (L. Reed/M. Monti) Moscow Discow ( Telex)

Quartet
Semo gente de borgata (F. Califano/M. Piacente)  Tempesta (T. Honsinger, E. Cavazzoni)  Fenesta ca lucive (Neopolitan traditional) Un corpo e un’anima (D. Dattoli/U. Tozzi)  Un homme et une femme (F. Lai/P. Barouh)  Something Stupid (C.C. Parks)

Quartet. Photo by Massimo Golfieri

It’s the finale. Onstage: one piano player, one keyboardist behind a small arsenal of electronics and two performers seated with their backs to the audience under spotlights. The latter rise, and a lo-fi opera begins. Cabaret balladry, heavy theatrics and snapping. Serious snapping. Flamenco-level, wrist-stinging, tempo-setting snapping. Korg blips added a fine electronic shimmer to this otherwise heavily stylized. It ended on the word passione, followed by some suggestive breathing. OK.

The second number launched a cycle of duets between Cristina Zavalloni’s vocals and Enrico Zanisi’s piano. The style was operatic, theatrical and frankly opaque to me. I didn’t understand the language. I didn’t understand the idiom. I felt like I was smacking my head against a wall: I don’t know this tradition – not its history, not its grammar, nor how it’s meant to function. This was the farthest outside my domain I’d been all festival. And, perhaps with a little irony, it came with music that many might find the most accessible in the entire program. Excellent.

Zanisi and Zavalloni.  Photo by Massimo Golfieri

Maybe this is how most people feel when encountering the kind of music that feels second nature to me. Though I’ll insist—and vociferously—that even the most radical experimental music has a kind of built-in accessibility, even for total newcomers. This set, however, seemed to require a certain familiarity and fluency.

I can tell you one person who did get it: the guy two seats away from me. He was chest-thumping, he was clapping in rhythm, he was pounding his thigh with joy. He knew these tunes. He loved the snappy pastiche—the quick cuts from standards to schmaltz to bubblegum pop. His delight was so palpable that it pulled me in, slightly. It was really the musicianship that ultimately convinced me. If I can’t have a blast while a guy adroitly plays a multiphonic plastic kazoo to an extra-cheesified already-cheesy pop tune – then that’s my problem.

I may have spent most of the set stupefied, but their version of “The Girl from Ipanema” got me. An ultra-slowed down arrangement featuring only the chorus and interstitial scatting, it was exaggerated and warped into something thrillingly unnerving.

I definitely didn’t ‘get’ this set the way their cover of Jobim got me. But I’ve never been more thankful not to get something. It shoved me far out of my musical comfort zone – and that’s a place I love to be. Comfort, after all, has felt foreign ever since I was five years old, when the other kindergartners called me “weird” and I said “thank you,” and meant it, because it felt like having been seen. Places like AngelicA are where we can go to feel comfortably uncomfortable, and that’s an important kind of home.

Message to my mom: I do sometimes wish I’d given you grandkids. I know how much you would’ve loved it. I think maybe I would’ve loved it too. But it never felt possible, or feasible, for me. In exchange—because I also crave that big-family feeling—I’ve ended up improvising one: an international coterie of like-minded friends and collaborators, all in pursuit of genuine cultural revolution. You’ve met some of them. You’re part of their family too.

Impacchettarlo. I’ve got to give a shout-out to the sound crew for their extreme flexibility in bringing each performer’s sound to life across this wildly varied festival. And while I usually don’t care for visuals added to music—unless they’re developed hand-in-hand with the material—I’ve got to say, Gianluca’s light touch with the lighting effects really worked and didn’t distract.

In the end, what matters about this festival is not just individual moments but the totality of the full, unfiltered experience of living musical culture presented with care, with guts and with no need to specialize or sanitize. That’s how you respect an audience. You give them everything, not just the trendiest slice. To paraphrase Bishop Robert Barron, miracles are not interruptions of the natural order but intensifications of it. AngelicA is just that: a miracle. Not because it breaks the world, but because it deepens and intensifies it. It shows what the world can be when music is for people, not marketed at them.

Even the chairs—yes, the chairs—are arranged in thoughtful staggered rows, so your knees aren’t crunched and your ears and eyes aren’t blocked, even with a full house. That, too, is part of the miracle: a space built for listening.

And yet no national Italian paper covers it, nor any of the big international outlets that ostensibly specialize in keeping the public abreast of the most interesting developments in modern music and listening. I’m not comparing AngelicA to the other festivals that attract the most journalistic attention, where the crowd is divided into classes and calibers, and artists are ranked by the font size of their name. I’m saying: this is something else entirely.

Sometimes, walking the Bolognese streets for this month, I caught myself strutting to Stelvio Cipriani’s suave synth groove from La polizia è sconfitta . That theme dances in your head, gets in your gait. And maybe that’s the mood I’m chasing: a little defiant, a little dreamy. With moves like they are meant.

Maybe at times it’s sounded like I’ve gone out of my way to critique some things and champion others. Maybe it reads like I’m shouting from a varmint hole. That’s fair. I am a varmint. To rewrite my favorite recurring line from Avere vent’anni: I’m enthusiastic, it’s a fever under my skin, and sometimes that gets me pissed off. (Noi siamo giovani, belle e incazzate.) 

 

Music is about people—not power. But even in the realm of experimental music, power’s still hoarded. The same personalities keep the spotlight and rarely share it. That’s why I highlight folks like Chris Cutler, Eve Risser , Mariam Rezaei,Pat Thomas—artists whose second nature is to lift others up.

As for me: I have no institutional authority. I don’t have a conservatory background or professional title. I can’t tell an A from a C. I could only tune a cowbell with a cobweb. My only authority is experience. Which, to those sold on the clean lines of weaponized professionalization—fellowships, awards, keywords and clout—probably sounds icky and gross, suspect and maybe even aggressively defensive. But I also have a stubborn sense of what matters, and I’m available. Even if that means I stay hollering from the varmint hole, so be it. Varmints got ears. And more importantly – they know a miracle when they hear one, which is what AngelicA is. Not a platform for prestige; it’s too unsorted and particular for that. It’s where music is made for people, and held like a gift.

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