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 Stevens. 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 Stevens 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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Markus Reuter, Vasco Trilla, Àlex Reviriego - Música Fúnebre (Self-Released, 2025)

 

By Stef Gijssels

Before we discuss the performance, let's have a look at the ingredients. 

First, there are the 'flat bells' of Spanish percussionist Vasco Trilla, as demonstrated on this video.

Second, there is the Philips Philocorda organ, built in the sixties. I will let you read about the instrument on the Wikipedia link. 

Third, there is the inspiration from "Musique Funèbre" by Polish composer Witold Lutosławski. The funeral music is dark and ominous. 

The music, the bells and the organ together present this trio's own rendition of the "Música Fúnebre", with Markus Reuter on the organ, Vasco Trilla on his twelve bells and Alex Reviriego on double bass. Reuter is a multi-instrumentalist, usually active in rock music on the Chapman stick, yet also known for his sound sculptures, with more than 140 albums on which he features. Alex Reviriego has appeared on many albums on our blog, notably in the company of Vasco Trilla and other artists from Barcelona or on last year's "Yellow Belle Quartet", or the "Desarbres Ensemble" from 2024. Trilla needs no introduction.

The music stands out for its distinctive sonority: a shadowed organ and tolling, solemn bells strengthened by carefully drawn bass lines and the hushed rasp of muted strings. It unfolds at an unhurried, deliberate pace, assured in its direction, sustaining a paradoxical stillness charged with tension. Gentle yet wandering, it carries a deep gravitas, colored by sounds that arrive with quiet surprise.

The liner notes describe the music even better: "The music has no direction. Neither a clear beginning nor an ending. Like poison ivy, it just expands in an erratic manner, slowly imposing its evil nature to the space surrounding it. Its roots deepen slowly into your consciousness until it gains control of your soul". 

That should get your interest and attention!

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Kelsey Mines & Erin Rogers - Scratching at the Surface (Relative Pitch, 2025)

By Richard Blute 

Kevin Reilly of the Relative Pitch record label did the free jazz community a great service by setting up a gig pairing two fine musicians in Kelsey Mines on bass and Erin Rogers on sax. (Video of the show below. It’s Part 1 of 3.) That meeting led to the present recording, a beautiful example of two like-minded musicians improvising together to make something wholly novel and exciting.

Both Kelsey and Erin have solo albums and I decided to give those a listen before writing this review. Kelsey’s solo album, also on Relative Pitch, is called Look Like. It’s a fine example of a solo bass album. (I say that as someone who owns a preposterous number of solo bass albums.)

There’s a nice mix of technical proficiency, both bowing and plucking, with melody and emotion. And Kelsey’s vocalizing adds yet another level of melody.

Erin Rogers has a solo album called 2000 Miles, again on Relative Pitch, and it’s a stunner, well-deserving of the **** ½ review it received on this website. It’s full of wonderful technique, Erin uses the keys of the saxophone to add a percussive element to her playing and her breathwork and vocalizations give an appealingly human feel to her music.

So it’s not surprising these two put out such a great album in Scratching At The Surface. The first track, Breath,uses the low-end sound of their instruments, Kelsey’s bowing especially gives the track a yearning almost dirge-like sound. This leads into the title track, in which Kelsey switches to plucking. Erin begins by playing Parkerish serpentine lines, but then switches things up in response to Kelsey’s bass. This track is an excellent example of the musicians communicating in their joint improvisation and working together to create something beautiful. My favorite track is Syrefattiga, Erin is using some of the techniques from her solo album. Again there’s lots of breathwork giving a vocal quality in her responses to Kelsey’s bowing. On the final track, Electric Blue, the musicians cut loose, both musicians playing at maximum intensity, with Erin on soprano sax.

The whole album is a great example of how profound music can be made with minimum instrumentation when it’s being made by musicians such as Kelsey Mines and Erin Rogers. Kelsey told me in an email:

“I just relocated to Brooklyn about a month ago from Seattle so I'm looking forward to playing with her more now that I live in the city.”

I’m sure everyone who hears this album will be looking forward to it as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzhTumodwXo&list=RDbzhTumodwXo&start_radio=1

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