Mark Turner - Patternmaster (ECM, 2026)

By Charlie Watkins

Reviewing Patternmaster for the Free Jazz Collective is an interesting task. Although Mark Turner’s quartet follows the free jazz tradition of having no instrument playing chords, Joe Martin’s bass playing and the horn players’ improvisations provide more than enough harmonic information to keep us firmly grounded in ‘mainstream’ jazz. The compositions too, though inventive, are hardly avant-garde. But at the same time, this album has a strong sense of freedom that makes it very appropriate to review here.

Turner describes the connection between his bandmates as ‘psycho-spiritual’, a sense of shared, mystical intuition that allows them to think as one mind. On a handful of occasions I’ve experienced this connection in my performances, and can attest that there is no feeling more liberating: freedom from the weight of decision-making into the realm of pure intuition. This is the sense in which Turner’s band should be considered ‘free’ jazz. It’s also where the title comes from: the Patternmaster is the master telepath in Octavia Butler’s novel of the same name. Surely this title indicates Turner’s desire for that Holy Grail of music: pure intuition, pure telepathy.

Not that Turner sets himself an easy task. The knotty compositions, irregular time signatures and lack of chordal accompaniment would drive a lesser musician to insanity simply trying to follow the changes. Not for these musicians: they don’t miss a beat, somehow seeming to float straight through the hurdles, and in the process their individual voices shine through. Never once does it feel like they are simply going through the motions or playing the changes, they are opening up new dimensions of the music even as they remain perfectly within the complex structures.

Like most of Turner’s output, the album remains within a relatively modest space: they are not interested in the extremes, they are interested in purity. So on this record you won’t find ‘explosive’ solos, but rather the absolute precision that can only come through years of honing a craft. Admittedly, this will not be to everyone’s tastes; and I’m not sure how wide the appeal of this album will be for audiences of this site.

The compositions themselves are wonderful. I especially enjoyed the playfulness of It Very Well May Be, which bounces with energy whilst it drags the metre forward and backwards, and for me was easily the standout track of the album. It reminded me of the music of Dewey Redman’s quartet Old and New Dreams, which of course is the same instrumentation (and who also released two of their albums on ECM). Some of the other tracks really swing – Turner’s bounces in with a great energy on Trece Ocho – and there certainly is a lot of variety in the tunes offered, although perhaps some shorter compositions might have helped the album to move with a little more momentum.

As with much of Turner’s oeuvre, I expect the reception to this album will be mixed. There were points I enjoyed, and the ensemble’s tight connection is certainly to be praised. But I found it a little lacking in soul for my tastes, a little too formulaic and tightly controlled. Other reviews online seem to be more positive, so I expect this will be an opinion splitter and I can only suggest you try it for yourselves!

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The Tomeka Reid Quartet - dance! skip! hop! (Out of Your Head, 2026) *****

By Gary Chapin

Every once in a while I’m reminded that I have a sweet spot in music and when that spot — that spot of sonic, cosmic equilibrium — is hit, then things in my head are just, in a profound way, going to be okay. The spot is defined by a deep groove, reckless composition, and a romance with the outside. Think of records by Eric Dolphy, Air, the Jazz Passengers, or Mike Formanek. My point (and I do have one) is that the Tomeka Reid Quartet (featuring Reid, cello; Mary Halvorsen, guitar; Jason Roebke, bass and cassette; Tomas Fujiwara, percussion) hits that spot dead on, and I am five stars happier than before I listened.

I wasn’t surprised that this was so. Reid comes out of an org (the AACM) that pioneered groove outre music, and she’s part of a group … or movement? school? tribe? “group of people who play all the time on each others’ records” … for whom this sort of Hemphilian tomfoolery is bread and butter. I’m talking about the nexus that includes (but is not limited to) Reid, Halvorsen, Fujiwara, Nick Dunston, Patricia Brennan, Adam O’Farrill, and the late, wonderful, Susan Alcorn.

This particular record telegraphs its intentions with its title, “dance! skip! jump!” It’s a string ensemble with percussion, and the title track timbrally evokes Black string bands. It’s got the lightness and ebullience (both necessary if you are going to “skip!”) Fujiwara’s brushes do a lot of the levitating. The second track, “a(ways) For CC and CeCe,” starts in a knotty place with the drums and bass giving attitude. When Reid enters on cello, It becomes an ode, loving well. “Oo long!” sets a hip and sinister groove. I am charmed by the pun title and want to know what it has to do with the apparently hip and sinister tea. “Under the Aurora Sky” enters a balladic or pastoral space, introspective. “Silver String Fig Tree” is a freer, more expansive conversation between the players with some interesting structures supporting it — for example, a section were Reid repeats a five note riff with a lot of space, and the others live on top of that.

Best of 2026 so far.

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Beatrice Arrigoni, Maddalena Ghezzi, Francesca Naibo - Monologo Addosso (Habitable Records, 2026)

By Sammy Stein

Monologo Addosso comprises Beatrice Arrigoni (vocals), Maddalena Ghezzi (vocals), and Francesca Naibo (vocals, guitar). It is produced by Luca Martegani. Beatrice Arrigoni is a singer, improviser, composer, and performer with a range of projects under her belt. She participated in the 2023 “improvisation voice and electronics” workshop led by Valèrie Philippin at IRCAM in Paris and studied improvisation with Stefano Battaglia and vocal technique with Renaissance and Baroque singer Elena Carzaniga. She has performed at many festivals and events.

Maddalena Ghezzi is an Italian singer, composer, and improviser who settled in London in 2009 and now works in London and Milan in the fields of jazz, improvised music, and vocal and creative experimentation. As a leader, she has released five EPs, all part of her Minerals series: Amethyst (with Thodoris Ziarkas), Halite (with Ed Blunt), Opal (with Francesca Naibo), Emerald (with Maria Chiara Argirò), and Dolomite (with Ruth Goller), and two albums with her band FUWAH. She has performed at the London and Milan Jazz Festivals and many venues.

Francesca Naibo is a guitarist from Vittorio Veneto but Milanese by adoption, who plays many genres, including classical, electric, fretless, and pedal steel. Having spent years researching solo performance, she focuses on exploring the fields of free improvisation and contemporary music. Her interest is particularly focused on using both the acoustic and electric nature of her instrument, venturing from roaring drones to microscopic vibrations. She studied in Venice, Milan, Bern, and Basel, graduating in classical guitar and free improvisation, and collaborated with various European musicians, especially in Central and Northern Europe. She has worked with many composers and musicians, and her album Namatoulee, received critical acclaim

Monologo Addosso is a sonic work which work that reworks and transfigures the poetry of Elena Cornaggia in order to fully convey its expressive depth. The result is nine ‘sound paintings’ with great dramatic power, in which electronic inserts, the use of extended techniques, polyphonic and contrapuntal writing interact to compose an evocative and expressive mosaic of colours.

It is very much an ‘out of the box’ concept with the interaction between poetry, sonic effects, and vocals creating a merging of the arts. The imagery the music creates is powerful and incredibly profound.

The music and interpretation of words and pictures create an intersection where poetry, music, and electronic effects come together to create something unique. Different styles are linked, with the vocals creating beautiful harmonies, explorative diversions, and snippets of spoken conversation to weave a landscape of colour and evocative sonic portraits.

The purity of sound, created by vocals, guitar, or electronics, is presented sometimes as a raw, material element, or a primordial essence, a lyrical and ecstatic evocation, abstraction, idiom: the work's sonic journey invites the listener into profound contemplation, expressing the urgency of an internal’ monologue capable of releasing energy and revealing the essence of all things.

What this album is also is intensely feminine. That might sound like a strange thing to say as a reviewer, but there is a sense of power and deep connection between the women who created this recording that is palpable and creates a deep sense of sisterhood.

'A Mani Aperte' opens the recording, and this is sensual, where the women produce short vocal sounds, including ‘dings,’ intakes of breath, and sighs. It sounds mad, and it is, but it is also very effective at engaging the listener. The final third comprises atmospheric electronics topped by a beautiful melody, gorgeously worked harmonies that contrast and provide a grounding, before the short trills and whispered effects complete it and act as a reminder that the track began in this tone.

'Tra il sonno e la parole' features harmonies backed by warping, echoing electronics that fade, allowing the electronic effects to come to the fore, but gently and with the guitar adding definition in a melody. The harmonies are beautiful, with deep contralto and sweet soprano melding to become as a single unit with many parts.

Throughout the album, the vocals adapt to the soundscape, either enhancing the effects, or contrasting with purity and beautiful harmonies. From the rickety tickety effects on 'Dentro Alle Squadro' to the standout 'Mi raccogliesse,' which features harmonies that break into a variety of sounds, from clucks to melodic inserts and explosive effects, portraying the variety of essences that womankind encompass perhaps.

There are echoes of ecclesiastic harmonies and madrigal singing, alongside improvisation and imaginative electronic effects on some tracks. 'Paessagio mentale' is intense and deeply emotive, while Implodo esplodo is held together by a madcap, chattering spoken harmony line, the voices performing as percussive instruments before the slow build-up of electronic effects overpowers the vocals, which retreat into a deep hum that develops a regular rhythm akin to breathing, and whispered inserts and snippets of voice.

The closing track, 'Quando il cervello prude' showcases each musician and is a beautiful, atmospheric way to end the album – and go back to the start.

A powerful, beautifully worked project, this is for listening again and again.

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Two by The Outskirts–Sort Of: Orbital,The Outskirts and Marta Warelis (2/2)

 

By Brian Earley

Disc Two

Friends, there is just so much music on Orbital that I needed to write two reviews to cover all its beauty. Seriously, I was listening to a new release by a fairly popular band this morning that clocks in around 40 total minutes of music. The first song on Disc Two of Orbital, “Spherical Harmonics,” contains more than 41 minutes of improvised mayhem by itself. The second improvisation, “Angular Momentum” runs nearly a half-hour. That’s an hour and ten minutes of music on just disc two! Disc one is over 70 minutes long. Damn! Ingo Frank, and Dave have some serious stamina.

What makes disc two of Orbital really special is the addition of pianist Marta Warelis. Recorded in Antwerp nine days before disc one, this version presents Håker Flaten, Rosaly, and Rempis in an entirely disparate context. If disc one was a propulsive trio romp, the addition of the Polish born pianist results in a thunderstorm where the lighting is hunks of lava.

Everything is big on this disc. The song lengths are big. Dave’s saxophone is big and bluesy and sultry; just listen to the 13.00 minute mark on “Spherical Harmonics” or, hell, check out Dave near the beginning of “Angular Momentum” where his big, fat vibrato and breathy tone evoke Ben Webster or even Johnny Hodges. The first nine minutes (nine minutes!) of “Spherical” is nonstop energy-power music where Warelis swipes violently upward in glissandos, thunder smacks the lower octaves of the keys, or tumbles piano notes like a waterfall made of glass where everything breaks but the momentum of the music. Ingo rams forward driving, chunks of bass plucking, and Frank hisses, smashes, and makes the cymbals scream.

To be fair, “Angular Momentum” is filled with moments of quiet reflection, intelligent space, and subtle interplay. In fact, I really admire Rosaly’s discipline and restraint on this piece. He often holds back, drops out, or plays softly, and the result is pure beauty, as it offers a chance for listeners to hear Rempis and Warelis interact. Listen, for example, from roughly 4:00 to 7:00 on this work. Warelis plays sustained midrange single notes and a prepared piano that sounds like a stopped mbira or harpsichord while engaging with Dave in a stunning and varied call and response sequence (one of many on this disc).

The second work blows softly to a close. Warelis slows her pace, Frank softens his thwacking and shaking, Ingo opens up sonic room in a near ostinatto formation, and the music ends with the sound of only Dave’s breath.

I couldn’t recommend this album more to both long time listeners of these artists and to those finding themselves, like the rest of us, hearing Dave, Ingo, and Frank play with Marta Warelis for the first time. The delight of the trio making new of things past, and in its forking of lighting with Warelis, both make this a valuable listening experience and an angular tapestry of harmonics for our time. 

 

 

Orbital can be purchased artist direct at https://www.aerophonicrecords.com/catalog. 

Read part 1.

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Two by The Outskirts–Sort Of: Orbital,The Outskirts and Marta Warelis (1/2)

By Brian Earley

Disc One

I remember sitting in the audience with my wife at the Philadelphia Art Alliance in the spring of 2013. We were listening to The Engines, it was a cool April evening, and the band’s signature combination of spontaneity and precision was sharp that night.

I don’t wish to descend into nostalgia here, but I find myself thinking frequently about Dave Rempis’s old band recently as I have acquainted myself with his latest album for Aerophonic Records: Orbital. Orbital is not a new album by The Engines, but it isnew material from saxophonist Rempis, drummer Frank Rosaly, and bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, a band that titled themselves The Outskirts, and played together from 2007-2009, smack in the middle of the years the Engines were active. While The Engines released a handful of recordings, The Outskirts released exactly zero. In fact, if it weren’t for Rempis’s now legendary COVID era 15-week, 15-livestream, 15-album release series we would not have access to any recorded evidence of The Outskirts at all.

On July 1, 2020 Dave took to the internet to perform solo and announce the release of the album You Deserve To Dance by the Outskirts, a recording he tells the audience that “never saw the light of day” because the original “multitrack files that allow you to mix a record were lost in a terrible hard drive accident.” The band, however, was given a rough stereo mix that allowed Rempis, over a decade later, to release the music. That night on the livestream, Dave did not perform any songs by The Outskirts, but he did play “Four Feet of Slush,” song four on The Engines album Wire and Brass reviewed at the time by The Free Jazz Collective.

“Four Feet of Slush,” it turns out, is the very first song on Orbital . Followers of Dave Rempis’s music will likely find this shocking as, first, Rempis, who pushes so urgently forward in the moment, performs songs from his past, and second, a Dave Rempis album contains songs,written-out songs. I mean, Dave never does this. His bands collaborate spontaneously, improvise live, sometimes for hours, and these works get recorded and Dave releases some of them on Aerophonic Records, often with the help of engineer Dave Zuchowski, artist Lasse Marhaug and others.

And The Engines songs do not stop there. Listeners will recognize “Cascades,” “Hover,” “Strafe,” and while it is not listed among the track titles, “Going Dutch,” a deep track from a 2015 digital only Engines album titled Green Knights. “Going Dutch,” found here on “Strafe-Glass Part 1” however, reminds me of early Ornette Coleman albums, if Sonny Rollins were the front man with the flexible time and forward swinging of Billy Higgins and Charlie Haden. Or, more aptly, the tune reminds me of the playing of still another Rempis band from the early aughts: Triage. In fact, the one non-Engines song on this performance is “Glass,” a tune recorded by Triage on 2003’s twenty minute cliff.

Orbital is far from reactive or sentimental, however. The trio takes these songs and makes something new and strange out of them. See, for example, the 8:25 mark of “Strafe,” when Dave and Frank explore improvised atmospheric sounds, more searching than swinging. But Ingo, Rosaly, and Rempis honestly sound like they are having a blast on this record and, given a thematic basis for mood and timbre, the group launches ahead, driving, laughing, and transforming these old tunes.

If you are anything like me, you would probably rather forget all about 2020, and on the Outskirts release stream from that July, before playing “Four Feet of Slush,” Dave quips the song applies to the time: “Let’s call it ‘Four Feet of Shit,’ how about that?” But those livestreams and the accompanying releases raised thousands of dollars for working musicians, and honestly helped me to stay afloat during that period of uncertainty. The past, even without nostalgia, can light up the present, as do my fond memories of the April concert in Philadelphia. So, although we may be walking through four feet of shit again in 2026, The Outskirts have arrived to provide the soundtrack one more time and to gift us a little warmth where there was none before.

Orbital can be purchased artist direct at https://www.aerophonicrecords.com/catalog. 

 

Read part two.

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Peter Evans Being & Becoming - Live At Bimhuis

This is a treat - the full concert of Peter Evans' Being & Becoming at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam in 2023, with Peter Evans on trumpet, Joel Ross on vibraphone, Nick Jozwiak on bass and Michael Ode on drums. The quality of the recording and the editing are - as usual with Bimhuis TV - excellent. 

Reviews of the band can be found here: Ars Ludica (2025), Ars Memoria (2023), and their original "Being & Becoming" (2020). The music is tightly composed with lots of room for improvisation. Some of the soloing and interplay are absolutely spectacular. 


One of our Sunday Interviews with Peter Evans can be found here. 

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Harriet Tubman & Georgia Anne Muldrow - Electrical Field of Love (Pi Recordings, 2026)

By Ferruccio Martinotti

It touched us a lot, discovering, some years ago, that a band was named after one of the legendary figures of the anti-slavery movement, Harriet Tubman. A runaway slave who, despite being physically disabled by the terrible conditions of segregation that she was forced to endure, didn't hesitate to help dozens of women and men like her on the road to freedom via the legendary Underground Railroad. Our band was formed in 1998 and features Brandon Ross on guitar, with previous collaborations with, among others, Archie Shepp, Henry Threadgill, Cassandra Wilson, Arrested Development; J.T. Lewis on drums (beating for Lou Reed, Don Pullen, Herbie Hancock) and the legendary Melvin Gibbs on bass, a trusted longtime partner of Bill Frisell, Henry Rollins and Arto Lindsay. 

Raised with Miles, Funkadelic, Hendrix and the sounds of the New York streets as their soundtrack, Tubman aim to contribute to African-American culture through a clear and focused mission statement: “Our music reflects the essential impulse of the wave of energy that entered and embraced the world in the 1960s: depth, creativity, communication, spirituality, love, individuality, determination, expression, revelation. We feel that the choice to perform Open Music has a value and relevance that connects with re-awakening, the new search for restored meaning that we see and experience wherever and whenever we perform.” This Open Music, which we can easily translate as Great Black Music, is fittingly contextualized in the present, with the Ghosts of the past clearly in the room but not as intruders rendering it a dusty museum practice. So the blues fades into noise, electro and free take on psychedelic nuances, doom and dub have no dividing lines, in an ongoing free and powerful flow. 

After I am a man (1998), Prototype (2000), Ascension (2011), Araminta (2017) and The Terror End of Beauty (2018), here is finally the new work, Electrical field of love. Alongside the three aces, this time we find the voice of Georgia Anne Muldrow, a true, disruptive novelty of the album. With a solo career of around twenty albums behind her and a series of prestigious collaborations (Yasin Bey, J Dilla, Madlib, Erika Badu), Georgia obtained a Grammy nomination in the Best Urban Contemporary Album category in 2018, while in 2020, under the moniker Jyoty (given to her by Alice Coltrane, a family friend), she recorded Mama you can bet, hailed by the NYT as one of the 20 best albums of the year. In 2022 their paths crossed at the Detroit Jazz Festival when Muldrow was invited to jump on stage: "it was the gig of my dreams. When Brandom called me later to do the recording, I almost fainted", is the memory of Georgia who adds in relation to the studio work: "I love to play free. I grew up in this music so it's my comfort zone. Brandon and I always seemed to be in spontaneous unison, it felt so natural to echo each other harmonically. Melvin synthesized everything beautifully. I didn't even need to explain myself, they already knew. And I call JT 'liminal trash', like someone who screams and whispers at the same time”. According to Maestro Melvin: "When people get with Tubman, they enter our world. Georgia Anne has a multidimensional mind and she jumped right in like she's one of us." 

A final note to the role of producer Scotty Hard, essential as in the group's two previous albums. A protégé of Teo Macero, Hard applied the production technique used on "Bitches Brew," "In a Silent Way," and "On the Corner," distilling and reassembling over six hours of material before arriving at the finished product. "Two days of summoning the gods and finding inspiration in each other's creative flow," Scotty said. Benevolent gods and inspiration through the roof, we say.

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LDL (Urs Leimgruber / Jacques Demierre / Thomas Lehn) - the eerie glow of jellyfish (Relative Pitch, 2026)

By Eyal Hareuveni

The free-improvising LDL trio - Swiss soprano sax player Urs Leimgruber, pianist and keyboard player Jacques Demierre (who also collaborates with Leimgruber in a duo), and German EMS analogue synth and sound processing player Thomas Lehn - emerged from the trio LDP - Leimgruber, Demierre, and the late American double bass master Barre Philips, which worked between 2001 and 2021, and hosted Lehn in Willisau (jazzwerkstatt, 2019). LDL recorded its debut live album, in the endless wind, in 2023 (Wide Ear, 2024), continuing LDP’s aesthetics, which recorded most of its albums in live settings.

the eerie glow of jellyfish was recorded live at the Kaleidophon Festival in Ulrichsberg, Austria, in April 2024 (where LDP + Lehn performed in 2019), and features a five-movement suite. Demierre plays the amplified spinet (which he played in the duo album with Leimgruber, It Forgets About The Snow, Creative Sources, 2021), so two keyboards - the acoustic, harpsichord-like spinet and the vintage analogue synthesizer, both augmented by Lehn’s live sound processing, embrace Leimgruber’s soprano sax at the center of the sound image.

the eerie glow of jellyfish is an uncompromising, tension-filled, and volatile improvisation, relying on deep listening and thoughtful, precise exploration of the performance’s acoustic space. LDL is deeply immersed in a stubborn, collective process of continuously filling and emptying the sound space, allowing the unorthodox instrumentation and LDL’s idiosyncratic sonic palettes to manifest themselves in the most personal and freest manner possible. This captivating process suggests LDL as a live organism that acts within an unpredictable, highly resonant, and often noisy, yet hyper-attentive dialogue where elusive structure and spontaneous, individual musical events are in constant negotiation. LDL always challenges and disrupts the individual sonic palettes and never resorts to familiar sonic options or narratives.

the eerie glow of jellyfish offers an insightful listening experience that transforms the soprano sax, spinet, and the analog synth into new, surprising sonic dimensions. LDL’s profound sensibility of listening liberates its instruments, far beyond our preconceptions. It is a sonic journey that visits close and faraway exotic, otherworldly, and the freest sonic territories, but with deep roots in European free improvisation and contemporary music.

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Nomad War Machine / Susan Alcorn - Contra Madre (VG+, 2026)

By Martin Schray

When Susan Alcorn passed away unexpectedly last year, it came as a shock to the free jazz scene. At the age of 71, she still had plenty of plans, including trio albums with Lori Freedman and Mat Maneri on the one hand, and with Ingrid Laubrock and Leila Bordreuil on the other. But obviously there were other projects as well, such as her collaboration with Nomad War Machine, the Philadelphian improvisational metal duo consisting of drummer Julius Masri and guitarist James Reichard. Alcorn’s roots lie in the Texas Western swing scene of the 1960s and 1970s, which she repeatedly combined with new classical music and free improvised music. So, in retrospect, it’s not surprising that she was constantly looking for new challenges and that metal could be an appealing starting point for her to explore new musical territory. Apart from the fact that Masri and Reichard have also been interested in country music, there was another intersection: Alcorn was enthusiastic about oriental music (she had studied the oud and the maqam) and Julius Masri, who comes from Lebanon, is also deeply rooted in Arabic musical traditions. Also, James Reichard has always been interested in xenharmonic music and open guitar tunings, which are more at home in the music of the Middle East.

The music on Contra Madre cannot deny metal influences, however the atmosphere presented is rather gloomy rock. It’s primarily Masri whose driving rhythms are responsible for this rock element, while Reichard throws in hard power chords or atonal arpeggios, over which Alcorn then lets her pedal steel float lightly. The alternative to these rather quiet parts are those when the pedal steel and the guitar start fighting. It sounds as if Ry Cooder was jamming with Earth and at some point they throw tonality overboard. This can be heard exemplarily in “Boiling Vortex”. The piece begins almost idyllically, as if it wanted to describe a picturesque landscape, before an alienated blues riff quickly emerges, foreshadowing evil. The vortex is by no means a gently swirling pool of water. The musicians take their time to build up this dark atmosphere. After about four minutes, violence reigns supreme, the tempo increases, the music seethes, howls, crashes and screams from all corners until the improvisation literally threatens to boil over. Even as a listener, it takes your breath away - and the tension doesn’t cool down until the end of the piece.

In the liner notes Lee Gardner of VG+ Records says of Alcorn and the album: “I started the label because of Susan. (…) All throughout 2024, she kept talking about this record that she'd made with these "metal guys" from Philly. (…) I texted with her on a Thursday in late January of 2025 about meeting the following Monday to make plans to talk about the new record. She suddenly, shockingly died the following day. I would eventually hear the record she made with Julius and James, and would meet them for the first time at a memorial concert for Susan in Philadelphia. I’m honored and humbled that they have trusted me to put this one more bit of Susan’s music out in the world.“

We, the listeners, are glad that VG+ made this wonderful recording available for us. Certainly one of the highlights in 2026 - even if it’s only March.

Contra Madre is available on Vinyl and as a digital download. On bandcamp you can listen to “Boiling Vortex“ and buy the album.

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Orchestra of the Upper Atmosphere - Theta Seven (Discus, 2026) *****

By Gary Chapin 

Martin Archer’s confluence of avant, prog, improv, electronics, krautrock, and big band is one of my favorite ongoing projects in the field, and my joy at this release is matched only by my being bummed out by the fact that this is the last recording the band will be putting out. The enterprise has come to a close. Theta Seven serves well as a valedictory effort — a capstone. Here’s the personnel:

• Martin Archer – woodwind, keyboards, software instruments
• Steve Dinsdale – drums, keyboards
• Lorin Halsall – acoustic and electric double basses, electronics
• Yvonna Magda – violin and electronics
• Andy Peake – piano, keyboards
• Walt Shaw – drums, percussion, electronics
• Jan Todd – vocals, voices, melodies, electronics, guzheng, electric Harp-E, lute harp, cross strung harp, hulusi flutes, metal Noisebox, waterphones, found sound recordings, electronic samples
• Terry Todd – bass guitar

The method of The Orchestra of the Enlightenment mixes composition, improv, and collage. For two frenetic days the band gathers and records all base tracks. Afterwards, Martin Archer takes the recordings, does overdubs, “radically” edits, and collage until, finally, the mass of granite has been shaped into a piece of work that reflects Martin’s original vision along with Brit prog, avant jazz, electronics, psychedelia, and trippy cinema soundtracks. There is a lovely Ummagumma-ish-ness to parts of this that I didn’t realize I missed.

The music is presented twice, once broken into eleven tracks, and once presented as a single hour-and-a-quarter-ish track of the whole thing. I prefer the latter, since every moment of music depends on where it came from and where it’s going. The segues and fades of this collage work are all on point.

There are many specific points that struck me extraordinary and have made this a many-spins-five-star album. After an evocative and lovely duet between the bass and the guzheng (an African zither-type), the second tune lets out all the horses. The drums fall into that ensorceling, mid-tempo “set the controls for the heart of the sun” groove that’s going to be the foundation for much that follows. The bass launches a repetitive, funky riff. A horn section of sorts, electronics, violin, haunting vocalese, electronics — overlapping melodies, almost, at the level of the arrangement, a round. On top of the pile is Archer’s baritone saxophone — which has a majestic timbre.

Martin Archer’s Discus puts out so much great stuff it’s easy to take for granted. But five stars is five stars, even when Archer makes a habit of it.

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Street Fight - Stoic Hardcore (Profound Whatever, 2026)

By Richard Blute 

The band Street Fight consists of Itta Nakamura on drums, João Clemente on guitar and Nuno Jesus on bass, and this band absolutely cranks. I’m tempted to leave this review at that and just tell the reader to go hit PLAY. You’ll understand quickly.

Their music is somehow very familiar and yet new and exciting. It’s the standard configuration of a power trio, electric guitar, electric bass and drums. Part of me was hoping they’d launch into some Disraeli Gears, and while that didn’t happen exactly, the trio did a fine job of demonstrating just how flexible this combination of instruments can be and how much great music it can produce.

The short track Iron Resolve is pure noise, sounding a bit like one of Sonic Youth’s heavier tunes. Equanimity is a great track, the bass and drums find a deep groove and settle into it. Feet were tapping listening to this one and Clemente’s guitar work here is really sharp.

The track Paradox Of Calm is, paradoxically, not calm at all. Clemente starts by playing some funky guitar lines straight out of Fear Of Music-era Talking Heads but then the guitar suddenly goes fuzzy and the tempo slows to some sludgy metal. This band obviously wants to surprise their listeners and keep them on their toes. With musicians this talented, the surprise is always a good one.

The centrepiece of the album is a 5-part suite called The Storm. In the first part (The Eye), Nakamura has switched from a standard drum kit to percussion and Jesus is playing an almost drone-like line. In the second part (The Eyewall), the bass is especially thumping as the funky tempo of earlier tracks returns, but now Clemente is playing some classic rock guitar, and the combination works just as well. In part 3 (Rainbands), Nakamura is showing off his skills (and they are many) with the track at first being largely an interaction between guitar and drums. But with part 4 (Uplift) the tempo and style change again. It might be the best track on the album. Bass and drums are once again locked into a groove and the guitar becomes more and more intense. Then Nakamura’s drumming really takes off and the whole suite builds to a startling conclusion.

This album is a fine example of a band finding the sweet spot between guitar rock and improvised music and exploring it for all it’s worth. It was also an introduction for me to the very cool Portuguese label Profound Whatever. I’ve been exploring their other offerings, in particular further collaborations between Nakamura and Clemente, and I predict I’ll be reviewing more of their music in the future.

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Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie EXTENDED - Live at Moldejazz (Sonic Transmissions, 2026)

By Brian Earley

Sometimes I catch myself living a pathetic fallacy, finding parallels in song development, timbre shifts, volume dimensions, or any element of sound really, and feeling a correlation to the moment, whether social, emotional, political or otherwise. And even though composer and saxophonist Amalie Dahl uses evocative titles like “floating,” “slow motion,” and “in flux,” amplitude and hertz themselves are not drifting and turning through the morning headlines of suffering, rising fascism, and encroaching chaos. But the world needs an image for longing, or at least I do, if I am going to confront and make some sense out of the violence unfolding across the globe. The world is in lurching flux, and Dahl’s latest work, Dafnie EXTENDED, Live at Moldejazz from Sonic Transmission Records, meets the moment, even if I know I am making it so out of personal necessity.

Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie is the active quintet of Norwegians Dahl (composition and reeds), Oscar Andreas Haug (trumpet), Jørgen Bjelkerud (trombone), Nicolas Leirtrø (bass) and Veslemøy Narvesen (drums). On the band’s two earlier releases, 2022’s Dafnie and 2024’s Står op med solen , the music one moment voices itself small and intimate and then shifts suddenly into dynamics that sound far larger, louder, and varied than they should for only five instruments. According to EXTENDED’s press release, in this new work “Dahl aims to expand and intensify the Dafnie sound and create a larger, more powerful musical experience.” Dahl attempts this by doubling the rhythm section and adding a total of seven new musicians to the group: Sofia Salvo (baritone sax), Henriette Eilertsen (flute and electronics), Ida Løvli Hidle (accordion), Lisa Ullén (piano), Anna Ueland (synth), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (double bass), and Trym Karlsen (drums), and in doing so she creates a Dafnie big band that explodes through my speakers out of the softest reverberations of sound.

Take, for instance, the third track on the album, “drifting_turning.” The work opens with one bass quietly bowing harmonics over the other, but by the 1:30 mark the basses produce perhaps the loudest and biggest bass sound I have ever heard through scratches, bangs and extended techniques. Dahl’s saxophone sneaks into the aural scape and begins to play a seemingly improvised one-two-three melodic pattern. However, in a move characteristic of this album as a whole, around 2:45 the band joins the saxophone and varies the same melodic fragment. This parallel between improvisation and composition is striking on this album, and nowhere is it more effective than on this song. The band begins to grow in volume, see-sawing in unison at a three and five note uneven melody until, at 4:50, the band absolutely explodes, unleashing torrents of sound that burn the once hushed melody to ash, out of which soars a solo of Anna Ueland’s synth electronics that annihilates the sonic air around it while the double rhythm section crashes underneath. At 6:15 the band begins to swing like the Ellington at Newport musicians had fallen off their chairs all the while keeping the blues going. The bass and percussion soon project forceful speed and the synth soloist, accordion and horns, inspired to do the same, urge the sound into the ether. But wait! The band again assembles itself into a kind of unison that reveals preformed composition out of what had sounded like pure improvisation until it climaxes at the 8:35 mark before simmering into its closing wash of electronics.

This parallel of improvisation and composition is executed so seamlessly, and with such organic precision, that this music rivals the best I have ever heard. Part of me hates to shift into such hyperbolic phrasing, but I feel I need to communicate just how good this album is, and, if I could hear just one more experimental song in my life, it damn well might be “drifting_turning.”

The album ends with a work titled “longing.” Here is where all of the explosivesness I fallaciously find mirrored in the earlier works as counterpart to the chaos and violence of our time manifests into an aching form for hope. A bass solo evolves into one of the saddest snippets of harmony and melody I can recall hearing, and when Dahl’s saxophone plays, I know I am lying to myself, but I swear the solo here is the very image of longing. It is the human internalization and expression of homesickness, of a desire for better days. It is longing for peace, and it is a kind peace itself, ultimately, that can be measured objectively in decibels. No self-consuming despot could possibly carry out fascist power grabs if they listened, really listened, to Oscar Andreas Haug’s trumpet solo or the swinging and soaring band that plays alongside it.

The work, like all longing, remains unresolved, and stops at the 11:00 mark, leaving an appreciative crowd in silence before it too erupts into its own dynamic shift of applause. So much intelligence is alive on this album, but so much depth of feeling is present as well. The community of musicians on Dafnie EXTENDED has lit a torch in the darkness friends, and for me, this is the album of the year so far, and if there are any other floating souls out there needing to give substance and form to their ghosts, I urge you to listen to it.

Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie EXTENDED can be found at https://amaliedahl.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-moldejazz

 

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Dr. Jazz Talks interview with Bill Frisell

Slovenian guitarist Samo Salamon, along with his prolific music making, has been donning the persona of Dr. Jazz for a long-running interview series on YouTube. With a focus on, as you guessed it, jazz musicians, he has an impressive video archive including discussions with fellow guitarists like Pat Metheny, Ben Monder and Steve Tibbetts, as well as musicians across the instrument spectrum from drummer Steve Gadd to oboist Kyle Bruckmann. In this video, Dr. Jazz speaks with Bill Frisell:

See more here: https://www.youtube.com/@SamoSalamonMusic

More from Samo Salamon from the Free Jazz Blog: 

• Samo Salamon, Kevin Miller & Dan Blake - Burnt Pages (Samo Records, 2025)
• Samo Salamon - Sunday Interview
• Guitar Week - Closing Statements (almost)
• Samo Salamon, Vasil Hadžimanov & Ra Kalam Bob Moses - Dances of Freedom (Samo Records, 2024)
• Samo Salamon - Dolphyology: Complete Eric Dolphy for Solo Guitar (Samo Records, 2022)
• Samo Salamon & Sabir Mateen - Joy and Sorrow (Klopotec Records, 2022)
• Samo Salamon, Arild Andersen & Ra Kalam Bob Moses - Pure and Simple (Samo Records 2022)
• Samo Salamon and Hasse Poulsen’s String Dancers (Samo Records, 2021) ****
• Guitar - Duos (Part 1): Leading tones, sympathetic harmonies, and unobservable mysteries
• Guitar Roundup
• Guitars! (Part 2 of 2)
• Samo Salamon Sextet - The Colours Suite (Clean Feed, 2017) ****½
• Samo Salamon Bassless Quartet – 2 Altos (Steeplechase) ***½
• Balkan jazz - Top albums

 

 

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Anne Efternøler, Maria Laurette Friis, Johanna Borchert - We Are. Profoundly. Predisposed. To Drowning (Relative Pitch, 2026)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

There isn’t a better description for this Scandinavian trio of women (yes, women only, even free improvisation is male-dominated, let’s not forget about it), than the one that opens the liner notes on bandcamp’s page for this CD: an ongoing conversation between the three musicians about, I will add, the vulgarities, atrocities, sonorities and small wonderful gestures of everyday life.

With a very basic instrumentation, just voices, a prepared piano, a trumpet, a flute and some small objects, the three musicians collaborate in creating a sonic environment about the human condition. Collective improvisation could be the key word to describe what happens on this CD, but the listener will find strong fragments of chamber music and small vignettes of miniscule sounds that delve and mingle like a radio playing randomly while you perform boring everyday chores.

As a listener I have been exposed, like so many of us I believe, to great recordings and musics with grandeur and big intentions. It’s the small gestures, the mini scales that nowadays I seek. This cd is exactly that. But, there needs to be an explanation here, not because this is not important music or just because it is just music to relax. Quite the contrary. The music the three musicians produce is precise, intense and urgent. It is also, maybe the most important of them all, so personal that immediately sets my alarm for greatness.

It is becoming normality but Relative Pitch has nailed it again, producing an album of profound beauty that defies categorization.

Listen here:

@koultouranafigo

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John Butcher: Seasons and Dreams

By Stuart Broomer

John Butcher has been among the most creative figures in improvised music for several decades, during that time both maintained long-established partnerships and sought new possibilities, whether it’s a fresh ensemble or a different sonic environment. These two recent recordings present longstanding associations that continue to grow creatively.

John Butcher & Angharad Davies - Two Seasons (Weight of Wax, 2025) 

John Butcher and Angharad Davies have been playing in duet and other situations for many years, and there’s an essential chemistry at work in their music. This recent duo combines two extended works recorded in live performance in Berlin and a series of short pieces,”Granwyns”, recorded in a studio in Nottingham.

The opening work, “Hydref i”, might be the whole package, an intense 25-minute duo improvisation in which two high-pitched instruments – soprano saxophone and violin – are individually explored and countered, creating a tenuous universe of intense depth and mystery in which solo and duo passages strangely merge. With sufficiently close listening, one enters a microcosm of sounds overlapping and interacting. It is a world in which the concept of A440 is largely suspended, in which most tones deviate from the norm, with Davies frequently mining intervals that differ sufficiently in timbre to suggest two different instruments. The music is always active, always sustained, whether one or both musicians are playing. String and reed have never been closer. There are times when the lines exchange identities, often at very low volume, the grit of string, the vibrating air of the saxophone, twinning and separating. The saxophone can function as strained obbligato, the violin its eerie double. A careening passage, consuming the last few minutes, is so complex, intense and interwoven that it could never be composed or imagined – the essence of great collective improvisation.

The second piece from the Berlin concert, “Hydref ii”, is a brief work in close resonance, long tones abounding, Butcher’s hyper-resonant soprano activating the air, Davies’ high-pitched, bowed tones moving towards the silence of sonic eclipse. When its four-minute playing time is up, it feels like it is continuing, whether lending character to the air or merely anointing its continued presence.

“Granwyn i”, remarkably bright sounding, has a relatively provisional feel, attention riveted on the combination of room ambience and the interaction of overtones. “Granwyn ii” has the feel of a hurdy-gurdy, that ancient, resonant wail suggesting the character of a trance. “Granwyn iii” is air-drenched squall; “Granwyn iv” is densely compacted, each instrument occasionally coming to the fore; “Granwyn v” is the soul of somber sound, an interaction of reed harmonics and violin glissandi; “Granwyn vi” has an uncanny suggestion of oblique calypso; “Gwanwyn vii”, the last and most developed of the Nottingham pieces, is as astonishing as anything else here, an improvisers’ mind-meld in which the two musicians are constantly modulating their sounds, adjusting their volumes, pitches, air column or bow, harmonic spectra – creating a six-minute piece that manages to suggest the scale of the opening “Hydref i”. 

 

Last Dream of the Morning - Sharp Illusion (FSR, 2025) 

Last Dream of the Morning is a collective trio that includes two other essential figures in contemporary improvised music, bassist John Edwards and percussionist Mark Sanders. The group’s first CD appeared in 2017 with their current name as title; it became a band name with 2020’s Crucial Anatomy . Sharp Illusion continues a series that is required listening for anyone interested in the current state of free jazz or free music. I’d like to begin with a certain confession. I was struck a few times by the presence of extended clicking passages, certainly not the first I’d heard from Butcher but by Sanders as well. I knew I’d heard the techniques before, but here the affinity with certain South African click languages seemed particularly striking. I googled “John Butcher click languages” and was struck by the first result, a review of the trio’s first recording from 2017, then paired with another Butcher trio CD, The Open Secret with Gino Robair and Dieb 13, the latter including a track entitled “Last Morning of the Dream”. The review appeared in this journal on April 21, 2018, and, embarrassingly, was written by one Stuart Broomer. Why some respectable linguist/musicologist hasn’t pursued this line of inquiry is beyond me, but it’s both a busy and increasingly preoccupied world, however much all this might reflect on a positive and inter-penetrating – not to mention utopian – human future.

That instrumentation – “sax and rhythm” – will signal a certain tradition, a format employed by numerous musicians and one that has resulted in some of the masterpieces of jazz and/or improvised music (a problematical distinction in some quarters that doesn’t have to arise in the utopian space enjoyed here). This music will stand solidly on its own, but it might also stand comparison with a certain hierarchy. The foundational masterpieces for consideration include Sonny Rollins with Wilbur Ware and Elvin Jones (at the Village Vanguard), Lee Konitz with Sonny Dallas and Jones (Motion), Albert Ayler with Peacock and Murray ( Spiritual Unity or Prophecy ) or anything by Evan Parker with Barry Guy and Paul Lytton (say Imaginary Values ).

Like them, Sharp Illusion, a July 2024 performance recorded at the Cultural Centre in Lublin, Poland, is about the specific potential of its specific time, or perhaps already an anytime when anything might be possible. If Butcher can be celebrated for numerous innovative voices, more recently he frequently sounds declarative/authoritative in a traditional tenor saxophone voice. Meanwhile his partners here participate freely, often beyond traditional functions. The effect is a trio that occupies an exalted space, at once intimately entwined with free jazz and improvised music, at once alive to the tradition of the former and still expanding potential of the latter, a dialectic organized around both utopian form and a potential for a shared state of auditory grace.

The opening “Roof Rattle” is a continual, 13-minute, reshaping of auditory space, beginning in a trio passage of equal parts bending individual instrumental sounds into an eerie and supportive collective voice. Eventually distinctions come to the foreground, loosely linking arco bass and a miscellany of percussion that can suggest any number of non-musical implements. As it rolls along Butcher becomes more conventionally central to the collective narrative, sometimes assuming a “boss tenor” voice that might recall musicians like Yusef Lateef or Booker Ervin, all the time supported by arco bass grunts, swivels and high harmonics, and a percussive storm that willingly ventures well beyond the conventional, the whole giving way to an extended click dialogue that involves the entire trio to varying degrees..

Each of the other tracks represents comparatively subtle evolutions, reshapings and transformations, always redefining the roles and relationships of three musicians’ constantly evolving views of the individual potential of the collective music, whether it’s the 12-minute “Turning the Soil”, hive interior or rich earth; the rich play of the longest track, the 28-minute “Movable Bridge”, which shifts positions in the manner of the preceding pieces but with even further development; or the very brief “Afterglow”, which Butcher begins with a strange transformation to a convincing simulation of a trumpet voice before turning to an openly tenor saxophone voice as his partners join in, eventually ending with more forceful clicks.

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Evan Parker, Paul Rogers, Louis Moholo - Tebugo (Jazz In Britain, 2025)

By Stef Gijssels

This is truly a wonderful album, suddenly seeing the light of day, after having been in on an audio-cassette for some decades, and now available on CD and digital. It brings a trio improvisation of Evan Parker on tenor and soprano, Paul Rogers on bass and the late Louis Moholo on drums. Moholo passed away last year, so the release is also a timely tribute to the South African drummer, whose second name - Tebugo -has become the title of the album - and of one track. "Tebugo" means 'gratitude' or 'we are thankful' in Sesotho, one of South Africa's languages, which makes the title even more appropriate. 

The two other tracks play with the same letters to form different words. One track lasts a little less than half an hour, the next fifteen minutes and the third more than half an hour. The performance was recorded in 1992 at the Vortex in London. 

It is as good as it gets. The music feels expansive and crystalline—intense yet airy, razor-sharp and vividly defined. It crackles with energy, sparkles and whirls with motion, splashing and clattering in bright, tactile detail. Lively and bustling, it pulses with dynamic vitality, animated spirit, and a finely tuned sensitivity that keeps it fresh and sprightly throughout. 

This is free improvisation at its finest, with all three musicians performing at peak form. Rogers occasionally slips into boppish runs on the bass, but more often the music feels entirely present—unconcerned with direction or destination, existing simply for the shared act of creation. It lingers in the moment, shaped by collective intuition. The unfiltered joy of acoustic instruments resonates throughout, making it a genuine pleasure to experience.

Enjoy!

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Nicolas Leirtrø’s Action Now! - Entrance (Sauajazz, 2026)

By Eyal Hareuveni

Action Now!, the name of Norwegian double bass player (and guitarist) Nicolas Leirtrø's new power quartet, relates to The Thing’s Action Jazz album (Smalltown Supersound, 2006), which defined this form of Nordic high-energy free jazz. The debut, double album of Action Now!, Entrance, is another homage to Leirtrø’s hero, Mats Gustafsson, who has played in The Thing, and to the title of the second album of Gustafsson’s Fire! Orchestra, Enter (Rune Grammofon, 2014). Leirtrø himself has played in Gustafsson’s Hidros 9 Mirrors (Trost, 2023).

So it was only natural that Gustafsson would be part of the new Action Now! alongside British organist Kit Downes, and young, rising Norwegian drummer Veslemøy Narvesen, who plays with Leirtrø in Danish sax player Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie quintet and collaborated with him on her debut album, We Don’t Imagine Anymore. Leirtrø also plays in the local power trio I Like to Sleep (who toured with Gustafsson’s Fire! trio) and the Noize R Us quartet (with Dahl).

This cross-generational quartet does not attempt to resurrect the explosive, cathartic sonic storms of The Thing or the visionary, orchestral, and genre-binding journeys of the Fire! Orchestra, but to offer its own uncompromising take on 21st-century free jazz. It embraces slow processes in all aspects of creation and sets aside the constant, urgent search for cathartic climaxes. Leirtrø expressed this approach in his commanding, exploratory double bass solo, aptly titled “Basssolo”, which clearly owes much to the physical, totally possessed playing of Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, co-founder of The Thing, and Downes does so in his “Organ Cycle” solo piece.

Action Now! sounds like a working band. Obviously, there are clear references to the hypnotic grooves and the infectious and transcendental riffs of Gustafsson’s Fire! Trio, when Gustafsson picks his baritone sax, as well as to the Afro-American late 1960’s and early 1970s spiritual free jazz with its repetitive motifs, intensified by Gustafsson’s flute playing (including the Swedish folk flute, spilåpipa) and with Downes’ spectral organ sounds. Only the last piece, “End Dance”, gravitates toward an uplifting, cathartic climax. But Action Now! relies on Leirtrø's visual concepts and graphic scores, setting the foundation for the eight improvisations (one of these graphic scores is seen on the album’s cover). The album was recorded in a two-day session at Øra Studio in Trondheim in May 2025 after a short tour.

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@xcrswx – MOODBOARD (Feedback Moves, 2026)

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos

Almost three years ago, when reviewing the duo’s (@xcrswx is Crystabel Efemena Riley on human and drum skin with Seymour Wright on saxophone) 10’’ side, a spit 10’’ with Inga Copeland aka Lolina at the time, I was finding it very hard – even impossible as I commented - to rightfully describe the music. But that wasn’t an issue back then, it isn’t an issue now and, certainly, it mustn’t be an issue. Never.

On their first 12’’ album, again on the small, eclectic Feedback Moves, the duo goes on to continue exploring new, or maybe abandoned?, sonic territories. The sax and drums duo is the core, the basis one could comment but, or and, a point of departure as well. On MOODBOARD they use technology (be it analogue or digital) so that they can expand their sound towards any direction possible.

There is no way to differentiate when their sound is absolutely live, played at the moment (as easy this task can be with recorded audio) and when they have manipulated what you are listening. What @xcrswx seems to be achieving right now is a combination, a unification of the actual improvisational ethos of impromptu music, with the control over the finalized result that technology can achieve.

MOODBOARD has indeed a lot of ideas coming out from a 2023 residency in Brussels but those are just a part of the process. A process that incorporates the struggle of redefining the material, changing or shaping it, while playing live and adding the playing live ethos of improvisation –maybe of playing music in general.

I must be frank and honest that MOODBOARD is and certainly will be one of the most interesting and intriguing albums for 2026. I must listen to it so many more times in order to decide, if there’s such a need…, what exactly goes on there, how “good” it is and which of my mind’s small boxes are ticking when listening to it.

Listen for yourself:

@koultouranafigo

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Angles 11 Young Blood Transfusions

Watching a video of a band that should be listened to in a live situation is not always a good idea, yet the quality of the recording, the camera and the editing are truly superb. The band is Angles 11, the ensemble created by Martin Küchen and that has various line-ups from three members up to eleven, as on this recording. 

The band are Johan Berthling on double bass, Alex Zethson on Fender Rhodes, Juno 106, Mattias Ståhl on vibraphone, soprano saxophone, Konrad Agnas on drums, Michaela Antalova on drums, Kjell Nordeson on drums, Susana Santos Silva on trumpet, Magnus Broo on trumpet, Josefin Runsteen on amplified violin, Eirik Hegdal on baritone- and alto saxophones, Martin Küchen on tenor- and soprano saxophones. 

The music was recorded in 2022 but released in July of 2025. The review of this album can be found here: "Tell Them It's The Sound of Freedom".

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Paula Sanchez - Pressure Sensitive (Relative Pitch, 2025)

By Hrayr Attarian

Cellist Paula Sanchez paints delightfully eerie and abstract soundscapes using unique tonalities that she spontaneously creates on the cello, enhanced electronics, and cellophane wrap.

Her solo release, Pressure Sensitive, is a six-part suite of improvised music that, at times, is solid and static, like a sculpture, while at others, it is dynamic and fluid, like a dance.

The first movement begins with an expectant drone, punctuated by the cellophane's cracks and susurrations. As the track progresses, the cello’s mournful lines grow anguished, becoming an otherworldly transmission with a mystical meaning. The ebb and flow of the music from cries to whispers is haunting and dramatic.

Meanwhile, “II” is a crystalline, rising sonic structure that bends and curves like a fantastical tree. The sheet rustles like leaves, and its pops are akin to raindrops. Cello’s bent notes hover over the background din like branches in the wind.

The fourth segment has the most cinematic mood. The cello’s melancholic calls rise into the silent pauses with a primal spirituality. Sanchez wraps her cello with cellophane, and her bow glides over the taut material, stimulating the strings underneath. At times, she uncovers her instrument, and the phrases she plays are melodic fragments influenced by the Western classical tradition. Modulating the tones of her instrument, she creates haunting echoes that further enhance the tune’s ambience.

The final segment “VI” is simultaneously meditative and dynamic. Moving from angular and agile con-arco refrains to restless creaking vamps, Sanchez constructs a darkly shimmering piece. It is stimulating and mesmerizing with a dash of angst to keep it interesting.

Pressure Sensitive is a provocative and moving album that is more than just a musical performance; it is also an immersive experience that rewards open-minded listeners. With it, Sanchez has fused her interdisciplinary interests into a single, one-of-a-kind work that finds harmony in noise and dissonance in melody.

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John Butcher - Away, I Was (Relative Pitch, 2026)

By Charlie Watkins

Solo recordings are always a risk. There is nobody to hide behind, leaving the musician completely exposed, and the freedom can sometimes lead to over-indulgence. But at the same time, they give a valuable insight into the creative process and could be considered one of the ‘purest’ statements of a musical identity. This is certainly true of John Butcher’s latest solo recording, Away, I Was, out now on Relative Pitch.

Butcher is of course a mainstay of British improvised music, an absolute titan of the saxophone who continues to develop its sonic potential in astonishing ways. He is no stranger to solo recording – this is the nineteenth listed on his website. Some of these have explored the acoustics of different spaces, such as The Very Fabric (2023), which was recorded in a water tower, or my favourite of his solo recordings, Resonant Spaces (2008, reissued 2017). But Away, I Was is different: this is a statement of Butcher’s musical vision.

All but two of the eight tracks were recorded on separate occasions (tracks 2 and 8 were recorded in the same session), meaning we are given a wide survey of Butcher’s solo work, from 2008 up to the present. But the album is not arranged chronologically, and so feels like a statement of who Butcher is now. And, as someone relatively familiar with Butcher’s extensive catalogue, I was surprised that what stood out to me most clearly throughout the album was Butcher’s melodic prowess. On tracks like Brinks and Fujin’ I was unexpectedly reminded of Steve Lacy’s solo recordings, the way he brought together abstract lines with a wistful charm, which Butcher develops by unobtrusively integrating multiphonics into his melody lines. He takes his improvisations in unexpected directions, at times jaunty, at other times pensive. There is great musical sensitivity here, and the way the album is structured allows for real contrast and variety.

The fourth track is a performance of a transcription of the incomparable Derek Bailey, who perhaps has done more than anybody else to define the sound of British improvised music. This is a very unusual contribution on an improvised music record, although it works perfectly – if you didn’t know it was a transcription, you probably wouldn’t realise. Such is the clarity of Butcher’s vision that I can imagine his own improvisations on this record being transcribed by future generations of improvisers, which would surely be a worthwhile endeavour for anyone brave enough to take up the task. And this is the real strength of this record: Butcher shows himself to be a master composer, with a keen sense of structure, theme, development and the element of surprise.

There is a healthy mix of extended improvisations and shorter improvisations, allowing the listener to experience both concentrated ideas and the broader musical vision. Mirror Foil and Pricklings utilise specific techniques in Butcher’s arsenal, and their short length is a demonstration of restraint which makes them all the more enjoyable. Mirror Foil is a particularly wonderful study utilising feedback with key clicks, creating a unique and enthralling sound. Pricklings is an insight into an unrealised project where Butcher overdubs himself playing two tenors and two sopranos; anything more than this short minute would probably have felt out of balance with the rest of the album. The use of varied recording techniques throughout the album provides some welcome changes of texture that keeps things interesting.

Away, I Was is an inventive and thoroughly enjoyable solo recording. It’s full of surprises, but throughout we get a clear insight into Butcher’s musical vision. It is clear that he has mastered his instrument, but such are his skills as an improviser that his renowned technique is put to great use in these wonderful spontaneous compositions. We get a sense of the full scope of his work, including his creative work with amplification and recording techniques, and I think anyone who gives this album a go will find themselves charmed by the end.

Away, I Was is out now on Relative Pitch Records:

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Linda Catlin Smith – The Complete Piano Solos: Volume 1: The Plains (Redshift Records, 2025)

By Nick Ostrum

Minimalist solo piano can be a gamble. One cannot make up for weak or inexact vision through sheer density or volume. At the same time, uninspired detours are emphasized in their lonesomeness. Too much quiet or repetition can sound trite or just plain uninteresting. Techniques that can exercise incredible power in trios and quartets, moreover, can fall flat without accompaniment. (We won’t even broach the issues of the arbitrary tastes and wandering attentions of this listener.) A lot can go wrong, maybe even more than in most other settings. The composer and musician are certainly more exposed.

The first of four in a series dedicated to Smith’s solo compositions, The Plains consists of a single titular piece composed for and performed by the masterful Cheryl Duvall. The two - pianist and composer - have a close musical relationship. Smith had taught Duvall as an undergraduate. After graduating and presumably getting on her feet, Duvall started performing Smith’s work live and commissioning additional compositions. The familiarity shows. Duvall is confident and compassionate in her playing, and this style of music requires both. The Plains is alternately vast and precise, wandering (Smith’s well-chosen description) but forward-moving rather than meandering. At once the repeated chords imply suspension in an ocean (there’s that vastness) and an insistent trudging forward. Movements (such as the second) can be as wistfully airy as they are heart-wrenching. The Plains, however, never stays in the place, nor in the same motif, for too long, and more active passages open to more spacious ones, more repetitive passages to more hopeful melodic ones. Through it all persists a fascination with tension, slight variations on repeating phrases, slow and patient development, but also slight shifts of tone, pacing, and volume. Primed by an hour of this slow accumulation, the unsteady but defiant surge (relatively speaking) in the last few minutes is simply riveting.

The Plains is a solo piano record, but despite the constraints that might indicate, it is big in vision, in scale, in emotion. That is the strength of this corner of the contemporary classical sphere, and that is something that Smith and Duvall do better than most anyone else. Take the intimate, the small, the modest and reveal the universe, the variations and the granular details, inside of that.

The Plains is available as a CD and download on Bandcamp:

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