Will Mason Quartet - Hemlocks, Peacocks (New Focus Recordings, 2025) *****

By Stef Gijssels

I have been listening almost exclusively to this album over the last few weeks. It is wonderful. An incredibly creative, compelling and carefully crafted gem that transcends the boundaries of style and genre. The quartet are Will Mason - the leader and composer - on drums, Anna Webber on tenor, Daniel Fisher-Lochhead on alto, and deVon Russell Gray on keyboards. All seven tracks are carefully composed with room for improvisation. 

It is avant-garde classical music in its essence, exploring La Monte Young's tuning system from his "Well-Tuned Piano" classic from 1974. You can read more about La Monte Young's "Well-Tuned Piano" here or watch a performance here. I'll share two technical paragraphs from the liner notes to give the reader/listener an idea about the concept of the music and especially its strange sonic quality. 

"Mason’s exploration (...) began because of Young’s elegant solution to mapping just intonation onto the piano. Young’s 12-note scale omits the fifth harmonic, resulting in an absence of justly-tuned major (5:4) and minor (6:5) thirds. One way of approaching the resulting scale is as a pentatonic scale with several shadings available of each pitch; another would be to construct a scale out of the septimal major (9:7, 35 cents wider than an equal-tempered major third) and minor (7:6, 33 cents narrower than an equal-tempered minor third) thirds. Young’s keyboard layout makes both approaches fairly intuitive; some familiar hand shapes, like the perfect fifth or octave, typically sound like a perfect fifth or octave. By contrast, a span of a minor 9th might sound beautifully consonant, and a major second might produce shrill beating."

"In Hemlocks, Peacocks the just intonation tuning system of Young’s The Well Tuned Piano is set at two pitch levels on two separate keyboards, one rooted on C and the other on 436Hz (a slightly flat A). This allows for the use of the 5/4 just major third, which Young’s tuning system deliberately omitted. But it also allows for an array of clusters and shadings of pitches. Especially in the improvisational context of much of this music, this lends the keyboard a flexibility and expressivity that is not normally available to performers."

The result is a very accessible microtonal, polyrhythmic and polyphonic delight. Anna Webber is the perfect saxophonist in this context, equally interested in microtonal playing, she is at once very controlled when required and exuberant at other moments, breaking through the confines of classical music and adding a free jazz accent to the overall sound. I just give a quick impression on some tracks, but leave it to the reader to further explore. 

"Hemlocks", the opening track is available on video, and will let you enjoy here below. It sets the tone for the album's overall sound. 

"Hymn" is a long piece on the keyboards by deVon Russell Gray, with Mason adding percussive touches. The sound is off-center, yet gentle and eery at the same time. The minimalist keyboard touches resonate in the open space of the Cole Memorial Chapel in Norton, Massachusetts, were the album was recorded. 

"Turned in Fire", starts as a free jazz piece with its tenor and drums intro, brought back into harmonic order by the keyboards. It's one of the highlights of the album, with its increasing tempo and unexpected changes. "Planets" also starts with the seemingly very free intro by the two saxes and the drums, only to shift into a tender and fragile piece. 

"Peacocks", the track that ends the album is possibly the most composed, and it is of an incredible beauty, with a hypnotic rhythmic and the two saxes spiralling ever upward, and when the drumming gets more volume, they leave their patterned playing for more improvisational work, with an exceptional interaction between the two saxes. 

You can admire the technicalities of the harmonies, and the rhythms and the tuning of the instruments, but the only thing that actually counts is the quality of the music itself, its intensity, its emotional power, its atmospheric mysteriousness, its artistic vision, the listening experience ... and this album ticks all these boxes. 

If you like music, whatever your tastes, you should check it out. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Watch a video of the recording of the first track. 

Read More

Amir ElSaffar & Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch - Inner Spaces (Ornithology, 2025)

By Stef Gijssels

We have steadily reviewed American trumpeter Amir ElSaffar's work before on this blog, and always full of admiration for merging Middle-Eastern composition with jazz. Of Iraqi descent, ElSaffar integrated the musical legacy of his father into his Western musical education. On this album, he performs with electronic sound artist Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch, who works for dance and theater, and who's also  professor of Electroacoustic Composition at the Conservatory of Montbeliard, France. His bio mentions his artistic endeavour to incorporate movement and space in 3D sound, multichannel and holophonic composition.

The interaction between both artists works to perfection. This is not free improvisation - readers should be warned - but carefully planned compositions with significant room for improvisation. ElSaffar has created a unique microtonal language that merges the Arabic maqam modal system with jazz and Western harmonies. To ElSaffar's credit, he keeps searching for new sounds and presenting them too. His eclectic knowledge of different musical traditions, his brilliant instrumental technique and his compositional power make it stand out as music with a unique voice, difficult to put into any musical category. Bianchi Hoesch's live electronics create more than just depth or background to ElSaffar's trumpet and singing, driving up the intensity, building walls of sound full of rhythm, or quiet flowing sounds that set the slow pace for some of the most beautiful moments of the album. 

ElSaffar's singing in Arabic will not be for everyone to appreciate - as we are usually less familiar with the quartertone singing, the vibratos and the language - but I can only encourage you to open your ears and listen to the depth and authenticity of the delivery, something he does even better on trumpet. 

On "Pas de Deux", he switches to santur, a hammered dulcimer, creating a sensitive and subdued sound that gives Bianchi Hoesch the opportunity to (re)create his own expression of previously sonic bits from ElSaffar's trumpet. 

The real power piece on the album is the eleven minute long "Spirits", which not only demonstrates the absolute purity and warmth of his trumpet playing, but also the compositional and rhythmic complexities of different musical styles, building up from the quiet intro to a more intense 10/16 rhythm, when he sings,  followed by a key and rhythm change into jazz harmonies. 

So am not sure how you could catalogue this music. There are "nu jazz" affiliations, reminiscent of Nils Petter Molvaer, there are possible associations with Lebanese trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf, but this is as far as it goes. ElSaffar does create his own sound. I will let you judge for yourself. Regardless of style and genre, it's impressive.

Listen and enjoy.

A live version of the album can be viewed in its entirety here: Live at Festival Aperto 2024, Teatro Valli, Reggio Emilia, Italy

Read More

Pedro Alves Sousa - Má Estrela (Shhpuma Records, 2022) - Portuguese electronics I

By Stef Gijssels

Our "Doom Jazz" label on the topic list of our blog is not the most crowded, but we can add this one that pushes the word jazz to the darkest corners of the musical universe. Portuguese tenor saxophonist Pedro Alves Sousa invites us to an electronic journey with Simão Simões and Bruno Silva on electronics, Miguel Abras on electric bass, and Gabriel Ferrandini on drums & electronics. 

The result is a masterpiece of musical collage, repetitions, overdubs, distorted sounds, multi-layered and dark, but at the same time compelling, infectious and full of emotional power. I am usually very suspicious and often quite averse even of the use of electronics in jazz, but here it works to perfection. The colliding sounds create a sonic wall over which Sousa's horn weaves repetitive wails, while the bass and the drums underpin the bizarre sound with emphatic bursts of power and energy, or quieten the whole movement down to eery moments of anticipation. Sousa's sax is further 'amplified via guitar and bass amplifiers and an effects pedalboard', we read in the liner notes, ambient sounds are introduced, human voices, snippets of songs, drones are repeated, and the bass and drums keep the pace going, with the raw sax sounding full of despair, alternated by an unexpected jubilating phrase. 

The music crackles, sputters, sizzles, rumbles, crashes, throbs, thumps, thuds, clunks, roars, clonks, drips, bursts and explodes. 

The atmosphere is unreal, relentless and magisterial. The effect is far beyond the familiar and incredibly coherent, as if the whole piece was conceived as a suite. Even the strange shifting melody of the title song create an eery intro to the deep industrial sound of distorted and mangled shreds of music. Despite the unfamiliar and almost hostile setting - it is a journey to an 'unlucky star' after all - the music is captivating from beginning to end. 

Purists will not like this, but again I can only invite them to give it a try, to go for the incredible sonic experience that Pedro Alves Sousa and his band have in store for us. 

The liner notes end with the cryptic "Even inside the shadows you can find hope", so not entirely doom. 

Enjoy!

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Read More

Elephant9 ‎– Psychedelic Backfire I & II (Rune Grammofon, 2019) ****

 

By Stef

Over the years, we've followed the evolution of the Norwegian band Elephant9 whose psychedelic jazz is a little different than what we usually present. 

They offer us a real treat this year by presenting two albums, both recorded live, which is great, because they appear to be a wonderful live band. On the first album, the band is a trio, with Ståle Storløkken on keyboards, Nikolai Hængsle on bass and Torstein Lofthus on drums. Storløkken is possibly best known for his work with Supersilent, but als of the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra. 

This is high energy instrumental music, with the rhythm section in constant motion, the keyboardist hammering away on magnificent chords on his Hammond organ and assorted keyboards (Rhodes, Mini Moog, Mellotron). Despite the quality and the precision of modern day music, the sound is tributary to the rock music of the seventies, mixing sounds of the better/early moments of Deep Purple, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Pink Floyd in their own vernacular that somehow incorporates many of the compositional and tonal complexities of jazz. Whatever the genre, the music is great, infectious, intoxicating, exhilarating. It's the kind of trance-inducing music that could have worked well on the neverending dance parties that I remember from the seventies: the music could go on forever, without breaks and interruptions (apologies from my old man memories). And even if you're not up for dancing, it still is great to just listen to, with sufficient changes, melodies and improvisation to keep the attention going.

Apart from "Skink/Fugl Fønix" (high-speed high-intensity) all the compositions were already performed on earlier albums, but that does not really matter. The trio's take of them in a life setting is sufficiently different to make it interesting. 

On the second album they are joined by guitarist Reine Fiske, who already participated on three other Elephant9 studio albums. They start in a really quiet way, with eery sonic glitters produced by guitar and keyboard, playing their rendition of Stevie Wonder's "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life", starting to be introduced by the special sound of the Mellotron, with gradual rhythmic pulse being added by bass and drums. It is all so obvious and predictable, but that does not really bother. Even if the recipe is known, you still have to cook it, and what they concoct is delicious. Fiske's guitar is a great addition to the overall sound, making it richer in texture, without soloing in the traditional sense, but adding precise notes, sounds, chords and rhythms.

This album also has renditions of "Skink/Fugl Fønix" and of "Habanera Rocket" as on the trio album,  with the former now even madder and more powerful, with rollercoaster speed and turns that the band takes effortly. That is maybe another delight: even if Storløkken has the lead voice on the album, they act as a quartet, and what Nikolai Hængsle and Torstein Lofthus do is nothing short of amazing. The album ends with another new composition, "Freedom's Children/John Tinnick", and 18-minute romp that has the the kind of weaknesses that become strengths in a live performance, with  a messy sound quality, some imprecisions, a slower meandering middle piece, but all contributing to increasing the authenticity and the tension, turning the audience esctatic.

Guaranteed to cheer you up! Keep dancing. 

Read More

Bastarda - Ars Moriendi (Lado, 2019) ****

By Stef

A little out of the ordinary, this music by Bastarda, the trio of Paweł Szamburski on clarinet, Tomasz Pokrzywiński on cello and Michał Górczyński on contrabass clarinet. On the last track they are joined by Olga Myslowska on vocals. We know the two clarinet players from the Mikolaj Trzaska Ircha Clarinet Quartet, frequently reviewed on this blog before.

The title "Ars Moriendi" (literally: the art of dying) refers to a book published in the Middle Ages to help people transition to the realm of the death, which was omnipresent because of the plague that ravaged Europe. The text is at the same comforting and consoling, and at the same time demanding reflections on the individual's sins and on the purity of Christ's suffering. It is between this moment of suffering and hope for eternal life that this music finds its inspiration.

As can be expected, the music is deeply melancholy and deeply sad. It is not jazz, it is not classical, it is not folk, but rather a genre-blending exercise with a very coherent voice. Not only that, the most extraordinary balancing act they perform is to go head-first into the most emotional musical setting without falling into the abyss of cheap sentiments. It takes courage to show this kind and this level of emotions, and somehow it is also very Polish to manage this successfully (think of Waclaw Zimpel or Tomasz Stanko).

The compositions are strong, hard to pigeon-hole, inventive and perfect for the instruments of this small ensemble. The cello and the contrabass clarinet offer a solid background for the clarinet to improvise on. The music is inspired too by medieval songs for the dead. The known composers are Guillaume du Fay (Belgium, 15 Century), Josquin Desprez (French 15th century), Cristobal de Morales (Spain, 16th Century) and Constanzo Festa (Italy, 15th Century) and the songs are performed in a specific order to represent the various phases the dying person goes through. It is only when you compare Bastarda's interpretation with the original material, often polyphonic chants, that it becomes clear how they reworked the songs into their own very specific idiom, modernising them while keeping the overall tone of desolation.

The band's name is derived from the "viola bastarda" compositional technique, which consisted of reducing a polyphonic composition to a single line, "while maintaining the same range as the original, and adding divisions, improvisations, and new counterpoint" (according to Wikipedia).

Even if this a little outside the scope of our blog, the musicianship and the uniqueness of the sound make this really worth mentioning. The music itself is so sad, that it will not cheer you up, but on the other hand, the quality is so good, that you will want to listen to this again and again.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Read More

Ida Toninato & Jennifer Thiessen - The Space Between Us (Ambiances Magnétiques, 2017) ****

By Stef

Sometimes we may move towards the fringes of jazz or free improv. This beautiful album is more avant-garde classical, yet nevertheless of posssible interest to the readers of this blog. The musicians are Ida Toninato on baritone sax, hailing from Strasbourg in France, and Jennifer Thiessen, playing viola d'amore, and hailing from Manitoba in Canada. 

Thiessen is very active in modern classical music and in baroque music with the ensemble "Cénacle", she even if she took some steps into pop music with her band "Daily Alice". 

Toninato comes from a more experimental background, exploring reverberant spaces with uncommon acoustics, with her solo debut album "Strangeness Is Gratitude" as a wonderful example of that approach. She also works with Ana Dall'Ara-Majek as Jane/KIN, creating performances that mix spatialisation and improvisation. 

Their music is spacious, calm, intense, slowly and cautiously progressing, creating timbres and resonance and pursuing them further as they grow and change. In contrast to even modern classical music, there are no obvious patterns or melodies to discern, but a drone-like shimmering of solemn sounds that explore each other around a space of silence. Despite their differences in background and perspective, both musicians find each other perfectly in the deep and central register of their instruments, which are almost always played with a gentle traditional approach.

On the last track Toninato adds some wordless singing and even if I usually hate this, somehow it works here. 

It's great to hear two young musicians perform in a duo with unusual instruments and coming from different perspectives and continents, and find such a strong common ground and sound. The whole album is solid and with a clear central vision on their music: coherent, beautifully performed and with a unique sound. They find each other in the space between them, and they delight us. What more do you want? 

Read More

Garth Knox & The Saltarello Trio - Leonard, The Book Of Angels, Vol. 30 (Tzadik, 2017)

By Stef

In late 2005, John Zorn started with his Book of Angels project, as part of his Tzadik label's Archival Series. In the series, he offers other musicians the opportunity to present their take on his Masada songbook. The second release was the excellent Azazel by the Masada String Trio with Greg Cohen, Mark Feldman and Erik Friedlander, who actually already performed as an ensemble on the album "The Circle Maker" in 1998, and later on Zorn's 50th birthday celebration series in 2004. The music offers this wonderful mixture of klezmer, classical chamber music and jazz sensitivities.

Now, so many years later, there is another string ensemble taking up the challenge: Garth Knox and the Sartarello Trio, with the leader on viola and viola d'amore, Sylvain Lemêtre on percussion, Julia Robert on viola and viola d'amore, and Agnès Vesterman on cello. Knox is better known from his classical work with the Arditti Quartet and the Ensemble InterContemporain.

Knox takes the Masada material and infuses it with classical sound purity, together with medieval, baroque, classical and contempary music as a wonderful counterbalance to the melancholy klezmer scales and melodies. The result is music full of variation and sudden changes in tonality and mood, full of drama, playfulness, some sadness and darkness but brought with an overall smooth and welcoming warmth.

The Book of Angels series remain a little too programmatic, so this is far from the raw authenticity of the music we tend to review, but it sounds fresh, well performed and arranged, not very demanding for the listener and a real pleasure for the ear.

On a side-note, the album is called Leonard, which does not sound like a very biblical name for a (fallen) angel, since it comes from the old German "Lewenhart" (Leeuwenhart in Dutch, Lionheart in English), yet there is a demon with that name, the three-horned goat from the Dictionnaire Infernal, published in 1818, a book that may be a further source for more Book of Angels to come ...

Read More

Kalimi: Otona No Kagaku (Silent Water, 2014) ****

By Joe

If there was ever a Zen record then maybe this is it? Kalimi is made up of Giovanni di Domenico (Fender Rhodes and electronics) and Mathieu Calleja (Drums), back with this excellent release of minimalist sound duos. Although the record is dated 2014 its taken awhile for the label, Silent Water Label, to put the record out. However, its a welcome addition to their excellent catalogue of contemporary jazz/improvised music releases which include GOING, reviewed earlier in 2015.

The sound and approach of Kalimi could be described as minimalist (although not in Steve Reich/Philip Glass terms). Built around the use of melody and punctuated noise (one could call it), is at moments truly hypnotic. The music is strongly based around developing the keyboard's ability to feedback and hold lingering sounds, along with drum beats which not only frame the music, but give the duo a direction. What makes the drum's approach so interesting is that Mathieu Calleja plays them in a relatively 'straight-ahead' manner, and not as abstract splashes of sound. This helps the music to build-up in an organic way and is in part what makes the music easily listenable, although clearly experimental.

Before saying a little about the music it seems (to me) that the record works well when heard as a sort of suit, and not as individual tracks. As record opens we are introduced to the delicate sound world of this duo. With tracks such as "forever high" (tk1) and "otona no kagaku"(tk6) the music hangs in the air ready to move in any direction. However, other pieces offer a more raunchy solution such as the brief "7.1" (tk2), or the fascinating "selfie my ass"(tk3), which much like a card player gradually revealing their hand, leads us into a dark musical territory. But nothing compares with the two heaviest pieces, the violent "b'hier" (tk4), and "9.2" (tk7), which jump straight in to surprise you with high energy sonic attacks, "9.2" is also the last track on the album which closes this excellent record.

Highly recommended to all who enjoy a mixture of jazz, noise and rock - a possible reference point (or 'tag') could be Supersilent?

For all those interested visit Silent Water's release page here, or contact Giovanni di Domenico directly here. 

Read More

Johannes Frisch and Kammerflimmer Kollektief (Day 2)

Kammerflimmer Kollektief: Désarroi (Staubgold, 2015) *****

By Martin Schray

The first thing you have to know is that this album is really good. Not in the sense as many albums reviewed here (which are also good and recommendable) - this album is outstanding, excellent, amazing, wonderful. It is simply splendid.

Kammerflimmer Kollektief’s mastermind Thomas Weber started this project almost 20 years ago. His roots are in the alternative rock scene but after the split of his first band he began to make music with samples and loops. After several changes in the line-up of Kammerflimmer Kollektief, today’s group came up – with Weber on guitar and electronics, Heike Aumüller on harmonium and electronics and Johannes Frisch on double bass.

One of the fascinating things about Kammerflimmer Kollektief is that their music is hard to pigeonhole. It contains elements of surf music, free jazz, ambient sounds, alternative rock, dub reggae, pop (to name just a few influences) - my friend Ernst calls it “free ambient”. In general their approach is a clash of pre-fabricated loops, samples and notated structures with improvised parts. Weber brings in these ideas and then the band improvises over them, the jams are recorded and then he puts them together, he edits the results before the musicians start working with this new material again. So the songs are like collages, after they are ready the band lets them rest and then listens to them again to check if they still work after a certain time – very often just to change things again. This leads to different transitions and sounds, even to new instrumentations. Sometimes the results are quite different after such a check-up.

Kammerflimmer Kollektief have released marvelous albums before (s. below) but Désarroi is their masterpiece so far. The reason for it is simple: it’s their freest piece of work, an album which is wonderfully balanced between a basic psychedelic atmosphere and angular, atonal improvisation, something Johannes Frisch is mainly responsible for because his bass is free from creating a pulse (the loops are responsible for that). Désarroi (French for confusion, disorientation, despair) indeed is confusing and disturbing, under a smooth surface (Weber’s guitar reminds of Angelo Badalamenti’s work for David Lynch) Frisch’s bass is rumbling, creaking and scratching and Heike Aumüller’s harmonium augments the sombre and gloomy atmosphere.

All in all Désarroi is a melting pot of biker rock guitars, Nico’s late albums, Pink Floyd psychedelia (in their Ummagumma days) – as if William Parker was jamming with Lee Scratch Perry and Velvet Underground. It’s a clash of a world we know with the unknown. This idea is most obvious in “Evol Jam: Edit”. The liner notes describe the track wonderfully: “Aumüller sings “the more you love, the more you can love” until her syntax deteriorates and her language dissolves, blurring into musical passages and sounds, and finally returning to her initial structure of singing.” This love Aumüller sings about is the music itself – it comes from a certain order, then it transgresses these boundaries, gets lost, tries to find new ways, maps them, and comes back to the beginning.

And in this world of love/music there is always space for pure beauty: The icing on the cake is the cover version of the old S.Y.P.H. song “Zurück zum Beton” (“Back to Concrete”), an early German punk rock classic. While the original is raw and edgy, a song where the anger about the cheesy romantic notions of nature is tangible, Kammerflimmer Kollektief’s version is full of melancholia. It’s their notion of an art form in which the musicians are builders, aural sculptors of a modern world – it’s the collective as creators.

Listen to ”Désarroi #1: Mayhem“ here:



Listen to “Zurück zum Beton” and watch Bernd Schoch’s brilliant video here:

Further Kammerflimmer Kollektief recommendations:

Teufelskamin (Staubgold, 2011) **** ½
This collection of songs is Kammerflimmer Kollektief’s winter album. In the middle of an icy landscape they have built an igloo which keeps you warm and provides shelter from the snow storms outside. There is an immense beauty in these tracks, the guitar layers are sparkling and Aumüller sounds like a dark fairy incarnation of Björk, Nico and Jeanne Lee. Very spooky!

Wildling (Staubgold, 2010) **** ½
Wildling is an album which is dominated by tenderness, vulnerability and a very laid-back groove (e.g. in “Silver Chords”). It contains some of the band’s best songs like the 13-minute-epic “In Transition (Version)” where they short-circuit dub reggae material with Ry Cooder guitars, Doors keyboards and atonal harmonium riffs, or the reduced psychedelia monster “There’s a Crack in Everything”. An album that works best when you play it loud at 4 a.m. in the morning (with headphones) in order to doze off or to sober up.

Jinx (Staubgold, 2007) ****
Jinx is music that could work for a remake of David Lynch’s mystery series “Twin Peaks“ if it was settled in the Texan desert. The cinematic quality they have always had is interspersed with free jazz saxophones, xylophones, pedal steel guitars – however, possible esoteric hints are immediately destroyed. Maybe this is their idea of country jazz (“Live at the Cactus Tree Motel”) or how “Riders on the Storm” can be integrated in a jazz surrounding (“Jinx”).

Read More

Aine O'Dwyer - Music For Church Cleaners Vol I & II (MIE, 2014) ****

By Stef

Solo organ works in modern music are extremely rare, and especially improvised performances, such as this one by Irish harpist Áine O'Dwyer. She was given access to the pipe organ in St Mark's Church in Islington, UK, "while the cleaners were at work", hence the title of the album.

I am not an organ fan, I don't like the pompous and dramatic multiphonic dynamics of it, of this first kind of acoustic synthesizer, the overpowering and religious connotations of the instrument, reminiscent of the so dreaded realm of falsehood, fakery and kitsch of childhood church experiences.

Yet to O'Dwyer's credit, she plays the instrument quietly, slowly and reverently, using the church's space as an inspiration. The ambient sounds of the church, not only cleaners, but also visitors and children give the overall sound a special dimension, one that is not out there in the stratosphere and even higher heavens, but one that is close to earth, contrasting sharply with the surroundings.

I like it a lot, despite my bias against the instrument.

Part of the music was already released in 2012 on cassette (sold out), but is now in full available on a double LP or digital recording. You can order from the label.

Read More

Marc Ducret - Tower-Bridge (Ayler Records, 2014) ****

Review by Joe

For all of those who haven't heard Marc Ducret's Tower series, now is maybe the time to start. This record represents the last instalment of an incredible journey through many musical territories, yet with one musical thread tying them together, that of Marc Ducret's original musical thinking. Tower-Bridge is the fifth, and supposedly last part of the series (see below) which took as its inspiration Vladimir Nabokov's novel Ada. There are copious liner notes - as liner notes throughout the various volumes - which give some explanations to the connection between the music and the book, but for this short review it is suffice to quote the Ayler Record's presentation which states, "[t]he music [is] composed to convey Nabokov's text complex structure and writing process"¹.

Although I reviewed several albums from the series - digital versions sent by Ayler records - so I haven't seen the covers.  However, I did get a hard copy of this latest record. I'll mention the music shortly but the packaging of this disc merits a detour. The album is made up of double CD, with triptych folding sleeve, a small booklet with extracts from Nabokov's Ada, and an interesting fold-out with some notes from Ducret - which include a score of his composition Real thing #3. A last bonus is quite a crowd draw, access to exclusive video content, a 23 minute film by Sylvain Lemaire titled Tower in the Mist. I won't tell you what's on the film, after all that would only spoil the surprise! So, what can I say except buying a 'physical' copy is well worth the money.

The music on the album is taken from two live concerts recorded in Strasbourg in 2012, producing around a 100 minutes of music over the two CDs. Like the previous albums, this recording re-examines pieces from the 'tower' series. An example such as sur l'électricité (tk1 CD1), has been presented in two formats. The first time was on volume two with Tim Berne: alto saxophone; Dominique Pifarély: violin and Tom Rainey on drums, along with Ducret on guitar. The second time was on volume four (an excellent album), where Ducret performed a selection of these pieces in solo format on acoustic guitar.² The appeal of Tower-Bridge lies more in the extended performances of these pieces, and of course the line extended up that performs them. The musicians, 12 in all, are the sum of all the albums in the series, forming a sort of mini big-band. This produces plenty of sparks and some fine music with powerful solos supported by tight ensemble playing.

If you haven't heard Marc Ducret's music before and you're open to rock meets free-jazz meets Zappa meets contemporary classical music, then you'll love this. There's plenty of dynamic interaction between the musicians. Ducret has a knack in providing action-packed pieces, his rhythmic concept often develops around tight interlocking contrapuntal lines to produce long melodies which have a logic of their own. He also loves to use dissonance as a tool, combining it with rhythm in a powerful combination.

There is so much on this record it would be impossible to delve into each piece. A few highlights include Tim Berne's inimitable alto leading the way on sur l'électricité (tk1 CD1). This track has a lot of information, a great theme, and plenty of muscular interludes with several gripping solos. The fantastical atmospheres conjured up in Real thing #1 (tk2 CD1) builds around a succession of duet/trio sections leading gradually to feature for the violin of Dominique Pifarély. Track 3 (CD1), real thing #2 has a wonderful strident solo from Kasper Tranberg (trumpet) who manages to ride over the heavy rocking ensemble, punctuated by powerful piano chord clusters. Softly her tower crumbled into the Sweet Silent Sun (tk1 CD2) flies out of the speakers like an angry neighbour shouting. The final track of the album L'Ombra di Verdi (tk3 CD2) produces a mysterious theme in the closing half which hangs somewhere between a film noir theme and a 6/8 rock ballad.

What else can we say about such a great record? I guess that if you haven't heard Ducret before this is a good place to start, there's fine compositions and performances all here. And, if you like this then you'll need no encouragement to look into his work even further. As for Marc Ducret fans, if you haven't got this one, buy it!

The website says this is a limited edition of 1000. 

Here's a video of the group live. The recording is more 'centred' sound-wise, but here you get some idea of the groups sound, and size. If you look for Ducret's Tower-bridge project on Youtube you'll find plenty of other examples. 

The musicians on this record are: Kasper Tranberg - trumpet; Dominique Pifarély - violin; Tim Berne - alto saxophone; Matthias Mahler - trombone; Fidel Fourneyron - trombone; Alexis Persigan - trombone; Frédéric Gastard - bass saxophone; Antonin Rayon - piano; Sylvain Lemêtre - percussion,vibraphone, xylophone, marimba; Tom Rainey - drums; Peter Bruun - drums and Marc Ducret - electric guitar

Other albums in the Tower-bridge series:
Tower, vol. 1, Tower, vol. 2, Tower, vol. 3, Tower, vol. 4

¹ http://www.ayler.com/marc-ducret-tower-vol-1.html, accessed Sept. 6, 2014.
² It's interesting to add that volume four is the only record that has pieces unique to that record. There are a few pieces which are re-examined from the other volumes, however, tracks: From a Distant Land; Sisters; Ada; ... A Distand Land; Sybil Vane, and Electricity (by Joni Mitchell), are to be found only on this album.  

Read More

Guitar Week: Solo guitar

By Stef

Once in a while, but not often, solo guitar albums are produced. They are rare in jazz, and even if the artists in the review below are connected to jazz or free improvisation, today, they have different things to offer.

Kim Myhr - All Your Limbs Singing (Sofa, 2014) ****

Norwegian guitarist Kim Myhr is one of this reviewer's favorite artists, as is testified by the number of reviews we've dedicated to his music in the last few years, with a good intro here. Typically, his approach is minimal, using sparse sounds, often in intense ensemble-playing, yet keeping a lightness of instruments that is often in stark contrast to the darkness of the music.

What he does here, is almost the exact opposite. On the long opening track, "Weaving Into Choirs", his guitars are overdubbed in several layers, creating an almost orchestral feel, with an intense repetitiveness that reminds us of Reich or Glass, and that is often the backbone of his compositions, creating an overall mood that is much lighter, more optimistic, as the album's title and cover art would suggest.

His twelve-string acoustic guitar resonates, and creates space, for new sounds to enter. "Decent", the second track is more intimate, built around an arpeggiated eery chord. On "Blinky", he plays only one chord, but then in hundreds of different ways, with changing resonance, and power and speed. "Leaping Into Periphery" sounds like champagne bubbles rising up in a glass, small and intimate and fresh and tasteful. "Sleep Nothing, Eat Nothing" is again more symphonic, and the last track, "Harbor Me", is an achingly beautiful slow folksy composition, with again layers of minimal and repetitive sounds weaving a texture that evolves with minor shifts and changes.

Myhr manages to create a genre-less style, that applies techniques from jazz and folk and classical music, both on the instrument and his compositions, as the foundation for his own unique creative vision, one of subtle moods and shades of feelings.

Henry Kaiser - Requia & Other Improvisations for Guitar Solo (Tzadik, 2013) ***

Henry Kaiser is one of the founding fathers of free imrprov guitar, a musician who is as prolific as you might expect, with no less than 250 albums to his name, a unique guitar collection, and with a quite eclectic taste for various genres, ranging from film music to free improv, with everything from rock music to jazz in between. My preference still goes to his "Yo, Miles!" band with Wadada Leo Smith.

This album is something else. It brings us quiet music - as you can expect from requiems - both acoustic and electric. And his approach is at times unique, as on the long and beautiful "Requiem for Fred Lieberman", in which overdubbed guitars sound like wind chimes in a glorious and strangely contained jubilation.

Things get a little wilder on "Sun Ra, Stockhausen and Lieberman Walk Into A Bar On Saturn", which has a story-like development, with different genres mixed into a strange brew, ranging from acoustic eery chords to electric shredding and dissonance on badly tuned guitar.

And you get it all, a slow electric blues, "The Many Worlds Of Hubert Sumlin", a beautiful and quiet hommage on "Ships That Pass In The Night" (For Masayuki Takayanagi & Toru Takemitsu), with Japanese sounding scales, the calm acoustic piece "Charlie Appleyard", and the album ends with a more new agey thing, called "Blue Spirits" (For Randy California).

So? There is lots of stuff here, but no musical vision. And that was probably not the point either. The album offers a collection of guitar pieces, some really good and innovative, some boring or superfluous, often played in the style of the person to which it is a tribute to. But then so what? The better kind of entertainment? An exercise in style?

Noël Akchoté - Z​-​Joseph (The Joseph Solos Series) & John Cage - String Quartet In Four Parts & Orlando Di Lasso - Works Vol. 1 (Selected) & Machaut - Les Virelais (Selected) & Medieval Guitars

So if you think that Henry Kaiser played on lots of albums, nothing compares to Noël Akchoté, French guitarist, composer and actor. He releases albums in many genres, and this almost every week. He plays classical guitar, or medieval classical music on electric guitar, or fusion albums, or world music, or an acoustic tribute to Kylie Minogue, and this month he has already released three reggae albums, sorry four reggae albums, and a couple of others. He has albums with klezmer music, with film music, with jazz standards, with Indian music.

 Is the man mad? Is he obsessed with music? Does he have some compulsive neurosis? Or is he just plain creative and endlessly productive? If I count well (and I admit that I am not famous for my math skills), he has released fourty-seven albums - albeit digital ones - since last year. Yes, 47 albums, that is almost one per week, and if you subscribe to his email, as I do, you will get a notification every week about a new album being released, or maybe he's just digitalised and uploaded new material. Yet his playing is excellent, and his skills on the guitar are good.

He has performed with Henri Texier, Louis Sclavis, Daniel Humair, Jacques Thollot, Sam Rivers, Derek Bailey, Eugene Chadbourne, Marc Ribot, Fred Frith, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Tim Berne, George Lewis, Max Nagl's Big Four (Steven Bernstein, Bradley Jones, Joey Baron), Tetuzi Akiyama, Otomo Yoshihide, Julie Tippets, Mike Cooper, Wolfgang Puschnig, Linda Sharrock, Tom Cora, Keith Rowe, Christian Fennesz, Nobuyoshi Araki or Daido Moriyama.

 So about his solo works of last year, they're pretty classical, with Guillaume de Machaut, yes the same medieval composer as on Samuel Blaser's brilliant album "A Mirror To Machaut", but also Orlando di Lasso and Alonso Mudarra. Akchoté plays his own idiosyncratic versions of these musicians, transposing the original music to guitar, electric guitar even, in a somewhat raw rendition, yet working with the original material, in a very respectful and beautiful way.

 Yet he's not shying away from modern composers such as John Cage, playing his String Quartet In Four Parts on electric guitar, albeit in a strangely altered version. The Z-Joseph series is more ambient and electronic in overall sound, although also played on electric guitar.

 It is hard to say what to think of his music. It's everything and nothing at the same time. And in all honesty I think he doesn't care too much. I don't know him, but I guess he just loves music. All music. And just loves guitar. And then he decides to try everything out. Everything. And that's great fun. And strangely enough, despite the incredible variety and prolofic output, it's all Akchoté, authentic Akchoté, whether reggae or klezmer or medieval or jazz or dub or rock or fusion or ambient or ...

 Check him on out Bandcamp.

Read More

Adriana Sá, John Klima & Tó Trips - Timespine (Shhpuma,2013) ****

By Stef 

Shhpuma, the label issuing this CD describes the three musicians as follows : "Adriana Sá comes from experimental music and visual arts, having created and performed with custom instruments combining acoustic elements, software and sensor technologies. To Trips is a blues inspired guitarist, the co-founder of the unique and puzzling country-fado-jazz-rock band Dead Combo; and John Klima was a member of the pop group who became The Presidents of the United States of America, many years before their MTV days. String instruments are at the core of Timespine – a zither, a dobro, and a bass guitar".

The result of these three string instruments from different backgrounds meeting is nothing less than spectacular. The sound is slow, meditative, bluesy, melancholy, yet at the same time zen-like and spiritual. It may sound new-agey at times, but then it's too free and captivating and full of unexpected changes and interventions to be compared to kitsch. Quite the contrary, it is genuine, deeply felt and rooted.

Think of Ry Cooder's "Paris, Texas" for the overall mood, maybe. There is no hurry, no need to rush, just time to feel, to let sounds sink in, to absorb and then to add, with precision, with accuracy, enhancing the mood, sharing a touch, a gentle additional note, a minuscule sound to create a stronger whole.

It is so unique, that I share the video below. Trust me, the whole CD is like this, and yes, it remains captivating.

Read More

Looper - Matter (MonotypeRec, 2013) ****½

Reviewed by Joe

Ingar Zach, Martin Küchen and Nikos Veliotis make up the trio known as Looper. If I've read correctly this is their 4th album together - which includes an album in collaboration with UK pianist John Tilbury. To call this music understated would be an understatement! Being very minimal I ended up listening on headphones to make sure that I was indeed listening to the record, and not the ambient sounds around me. It is certainly a music which needs your whole attention, probaby the perfect record for very early in the morning, or last thing at night when surrounding world sound is at its lowest. 

Minimal music (*) such as this is always an interesting listen I find. The musicians create an intimate sound world that needs attention, a little like someone who speaks softly whilst explaining something, it would be interesting to hear/see how music such as this works live. The detail the three musicians put into each piece is fascinating, and also very delicate. Although it's difficult to pin-point exact instruments Ingar Zach's soft bass drum, or the fluttering of Küchen's saxophone pads clearly come through from time to time. The cello of Nikos Veliotis like his role in the drone string trio of "Mohammed" is somewhere within the sound of the ensemble, but trying to identify it may be more difficult. On "In Flamen" (tk2) I found myself comparing the sound of the trio to that echoing through the corridors and passages of the London Underground, a sort of fully realised ambient live performance. Everything is slightly blurred, yet you clearly hear all the details.  

Another very interesting point in the music is the amount of rhythmical detail the trio creates. Track three "Alignment", like "Slow" (tk1), uses very subtle - I guess - saxophone key noise to create a sort of clickerty-clack (not unlike a train track) helping the music have a sort of subliminal rhythm. The only piece on the record that is louder than a whisper is the last piece, a sort of electronic drone "Our Meal" (tk4). Here, sounding like an oscillator orchestra, you get different frequencies rubbing together to create a crescendo. We hear the sounds of overblown sax, bowed/rubbed glasses, percussion clicks, cymbal sounds and ..?.. all played and mixed into a highly charged industrial soundscape. This final piece is well placed after all the delicate sounds beforehand, releasing the listener from the previous pieces which have up until now been like listening to the delicate sound of snow falling in the night.

Highly recommended!

p.s. Released on a vinyl LP, and you can find a copy at instantjazz.com.  

*= As an example check out Another Timbre's catalogue for an excellent representation of what you can do with modern minimalism.

Read More

Marc Ducret: Tower Vol.3 (Ayler, 2013) ***½

Reviewed by Joe

I've kind of lost my way a bit with the Marc Ducret "Tower" series. We haven't reviewed them all here but a quick look on the Ayler site tells me that "Tower Vol.1" must have been out in 2011, followed by "Vol. 2" later in the same year. We reviewed "Tower Vol.4", a solo performance which appeared in 2012 and now we have "Tower Vol.3", which was recorded before volume four! I should add that according to the Ayler website this may not be the end of the story ... more volumes to appear? Most of the titles are re-interpreted over the four albums, although not every one and not the same order on each CD - look at the Ayler website to make the comparison over the four records.

If you've heard Marc Ducret's music before you'll already have a fair idea of what this record may sound like (musically). Over the years he's built up this very interesting mixture of free jazz and atonal jazz rock that gives at times an almost contemporary classical tinge to his compositions. Working with various brass combinations he makes some highly sophisticated modern day fanfare music - obviously a little more complex than your average marching band. I was really struck by one of his earlier releases "Le Sens de la Marche", a very strong punchy record recorded (as many of his records) live with his ensemble of the same name. This album sort of follows in the same vein except here we have no drums, something that you don't really think about until reading over the list of musicians. Ducret has an amazing way of presenting his music, not unlike someone such as Steve Reich, he is able to combine instrument combinations and lines which together make melody out of rhythm. His use of marimba/xylophone/vibes player (Sylvain Lemêtre) adds to the strong pulse of the music, and helps strengthen the almost Zappa-esque atonal type melodic lines. These drive the music but leave space for a soloist(s) to "do their thing", and do it they indeed do! 
   
It would be difficult to pick out 'the' best tracks, Ducret's music just doesn't work like that. However, it is possible to cite a few sections on the album that somehow stand out. "Real Thing #2" (tk2) has some amazing moments (texturally). After fighting through some dense melodic and rhythmic music the band lapses into a fantastic coda, percussion, bells, tambourine (?), vibes, all combine with the long melody creating an almost Sergio Leone type western music full of tension. "Real Thing #3" (tk3) starts off with huge dissonant brass chords which gradually lead us towards a strange section which sounds not unlike these enormous Tibetan brass horns that sound together across the Himalayas. Finally "Softly Her Tower Crumbled in the Sweet Silent Sun" uses silence as a melody. Strongly hit chords are left to fade away leaving empty spaces. Gradually Ducret introduces one of his long dense contrapuntal melodies, brass, vibes, guitar, piano all move around each other ending up in overlapping notes that create dissonant chords like a scene in a horror film, most tense.

From the sound of  Marc Ducret's music I can imagine him listening to Tim Berne and Frank Zappa, but at the same time his compositional approach also has strong elements of 'spectral' music such as that of Jonathan Harvey. His music really seems to dig inside sound itself and yet manages to stay accessible. For anyone interested in jazz, improvised music, rock and of course maybe contemporary classical music this is fine album which I find reveals new ideas and nuances with each listen.

The line up on this album: Marc Ducret - electric guitar, Fidel Fourneyron - trombone, Sylvain Lemêtre - vibraphone, xylophone, marimba, percussion, Matthias Mahler - trombone, Alexis Persigan - trombone, Antonin Rayon - piano, celesta.

You can  purchase it at instantjazz.com. 

Read More

Living by Lanterns - Old Myth/New Science (Cuneiform, 2012) ***

Reviewed by Joe

Here's a record to add to Paul Aquaro's recent post concerning Sonic Liberation Front's record tribute to Sun Ra. Here is Living by Lanterns a group co-led by Mike Reed and Jason Adesiewicz - see below for line-up. Apparently these pieces, and of course this CD, were commissioned by the Experimental Sound Studio (ESS), based on tapes from a kind of free form session of Sun Ra's back in 1961, and catalogued as "NY 1961." There are no real compositions on that tape just improvised ideas. These ideas were used to inspire the music written and played on this album. it seems, from what Cuneiform say on their site that this IS NOT a tribute. However, from the amount of ideas developed from the 'root' material it seems strange to say the contrary, but who cares anyhow, it's the music that counts.

In terms of music one could probably put this into the same bag as the Exploding Star Orchestra. It's vibrant music that swings away happily with some great themes popping up all throughout the record. The 7 themes are all fairly straight ahead affairs except for track 1 and track 6. The first track is a montage of some Sun Ra 'dialogue' doing one of his rants about, love, outer space, who we are, reality, myth and where we come from. If you've seen the various documentaries on Sun Ra and easily found on YouTube (hint!), then you'll know what I'm talking about. The sixth track 'Glow Lights' is the only 'free-form' piece on the record, surprising really considering the pedigree of this group. 

The other five tracks all have some nice moments and solid solos from the stellar line up (see below). As already mentioned this is essentially a swinging record, even if some of the themes are dark in nature. I particularly liked the second track 'Think Tank' with it's glistening vibes. The track quickly falls into an ostinato line with one of Mary Halvorson's wammy-bar distorted guitar solos flowing over it. Jason Adasiewicz comes along to add some spacey vibes as the tune develops before Taylor Ho Bynum jumps in to give the group a sort of free form Wynton Marsalis bluesy slurs to work with before the group heads back into the melody. Much of the front line melodies are carried by Greg Ward who really stands out on all the tracks, either through his solo lines or his lead playing. 'Shadow Boxer's Delight' (tk4) seems to be a feature for Tomeka Reid on cello. The tune has a lovely melody which although played at the beginning really comes into it's own at the end when the rhythm section drops out.

The other tracks such as 'Forget B' or 'Old Science' are well written pieces with attractive melodies and good solos, but for my money it's a little bit lacking in excitement, or maybe that's just what I heard from my armchair. I found the record a really good listen but when looking at the line up I couldn't help wondering if a few more chances could have been taken. It's almost as if every soloist has his/her own feature, but isn't necessarily suited to 'that' job, or maybe I could say 'in that context'. 

A nice record which could be worth while tracking down if you enjoy fairly straight ahead music from the young Chicago/New York scene. Although if you're looking for intense sounds that might be normally associated with some members of the group you're probably better off looking in other directions.

The Group :

Greg Ward – alto saxophone, Taylor Ho Bynum – cornet, Ingrid Laubrock – tenor saxophone, Tomeka Reid – cello, Mary Halvorson – guitar, Jason Adasiewicz – vibraphone, Joshua Abrams – bass, Tomas Fujiwara – drums, Mike Reed – drums, electronics.

© stef

Read More

Marc Ducret - Tower Vol.4 (Ayler Records, 2012) ****½

 

Posted by Joe

The instant I saw Marc Ducret's name on the list I rushed to open up the file to get a listen. It's always a pleasure and an experience to listen to Marc Ducret he's, as far as I know, never made a bad record. Everything I've heard has all the elements needed to make great music : original, accessible, avant-garde, melodic, rhythmic, rocks, swings ... and the list goes on. This latest release is another in the Tower series : 'Tower, Vol.4'  and this time a solo project. For those interested Vol.1 was his French ensemble and Vol.2 with a Franco/American group. As far as I know there's no Vol.3, or not released on CD that is. 

I remember (a few weeks ago) reviewer Paolo Casertano's trilogy of articles on Stian Westerhus where he talked about Westerhus as a new Derek Bailey. After reading his articles I immediately thought of a few other guitarists that really deserved a place in that list -  Fred Frith, Hans Reichel, the excellent Keith Rowe, to name three players. Marc Ducret is another guitarist who should also be on that list, and for me he's also on a different level than Stian Westerhus. Ducret's creativity holds no bounds, as this album attests. And, to add to the interest, it's all on acoustic guitar! If you know Marc Ducret's playing from the multitude of artists he works with, you can certainly attest to the amazing range and depth of sounds he manages to coach out of his guitar. He can also write a good, if slightly left field, melody also. Anyone interested in such a project should check out his big band project Le Sens de la Marche.

There are nine solo instrumentals on the record. Each track plays off the different textures or aspects of the guitars sound. The acoustics (in the room where he's recording) are perfect, making for a very intimate listening experience. In fact you can even hear birds in the background tweeting away on some of the pieces.

Some of the highlights for me are - 'From a Distant Land' (Tk1) where he uses his guitar like a Japanese Koto. Ducret eventually turns the piece around with some wonderful 'dampened string' playing which pulses along and sounds not unlike John Cage's piano on 'Sonatas & Interludes for prepared piano'. There's a reprise of this piece, a second take I imagine, later on the record called '... Distant Land' (Tk7). The third track 'Sisters' is a microscopic view of harmonics on the guitar, short but very beautiful. 'sur l'électricité' (Tk2) is a typical Ducret sounding piece, something between Derek Bailey and Gary Lucas in Beefheart's band (ex : 'Flavor Bud Living'). The atonal lines are often a-rhythmic but certainly beautiful to listen to, often developing into chords or strummed sections. 'Ada' (Tk6) another piece with plenty of space also has surprising leaps and melodic twists. It finishes in glorious large chords, which have no real name - harmonically that is.

Finally, what I really enjoy about Marc Ducret's playing, and this record in general, is his ability to constantly come up with fresh sounding music. He manages to be utterly 'in' the avant-garde and yet remain very accessible, not unlike John Cage did. There's always plenty of things for the listener to hold onto (sort of audio guide post), but with plenty of new sounds you can marvel at. The music is full of details and depth which means you can come back to discover something new each time.

If you don't already know Marc Ducret this may be a good place to start. And for anyone wanting to hear what's possible on a guitar this has plenty of inspiring ideas, unless you're thinking of auditioning for the X-Factor of course!

Highly recommended, as always.

Postscript : I sent an email to Paolo recommending the above album. In his reply he made a very pertinent remark which sums up the large range of music to be found on the album. I quote : 

"The music on this record seems to be ancient and really modern at the same time. A rare blend!"

I couldn't have put it better myself, thanks!

Read More

Arts and Sciences - New You (Singlespeed Music, 2012) *****

Posted by Joe

I met Michael Coleman (the leader of Arts and Science) in Brussels quite a few years ago. He was on the usual European tourist trip with a friend of his - maybe Jordan Glenn, the drummer on this album? Michael told me about another interesting project called Schumann's Humans, a group playing the music of Schumann, but re-imagined. I remember checking out via MySpace the group and being highly impressed, but of course since then I'd lost track of Michael's groups and career. Well, time has caught up and here we are in 2012 with a record from Michael Coleman under the title 'Arts and Science - New You', and it's to my ears a corker! I should also add, for all those that read the recent Aram Shelton review, that this is another record out on the excellent Singlespeed Music label.

If you're ready to be taken on a burning trip of musical ideas and styles, then this is the one you might indeed be well advised to check out. If you remember the free wheeling blowing and sheer eclecticism of Human Feel then you'll already have a vague notion of what the music could be. Although not as 'free', it does however have a power and imagination that easily matches that genre breaking group. The groups makeup does (in a way) mirror some of Human Feel's elements as it's two sax front line, no bass, drums and in this case keyboard may suggest. Each of the musicians deserves a mention as everybody plays sublimely well, blowing hot and cold all over the music, prepared to take the risks needed to give the music an excitement and energy that keeps the listener pinned to their seat!

Both Jacob Zimmerman (alto sax, flute, percussion), Matt Nelson (Tenor sax, effects, percussion) are new names to me, and a revelation also. Both players seem to mold together to form a front line that instinctively thinks as one. Their solos sometimes scream out of the speakers and at others come together to form tight ensemble work. Jordan Glenn (drums) is certainly a key player in this complex music which at times sounds not unlike early King Crimson in it's ensemble work. The modern melodies fly out at you never letting one guess which direction the music will take. 'Seram' (Tk 7) swings away at a fast tempo, whilst the gorgeous melody of 'Shunting' (Tk 8) has an almost sinister obstinate riff for the two saxes to blow around. Baby Boner (Tk 3) turns into a polyrhythmic piece, like a pigmy melody taken straight from the rain forests. 'Scientology' (Tk 9) makes use of gongs and bowed cymbals leading us to a beautiful and delicate melody with extra horns and a guitar. And the final brooding 'Jazz/Shadow' (Tk 10) with strangely distorted recorded horns and keyboard, roll like the sea with the two horns wailing above. Every track is a winner!

The myriad ideas of Michael Coleman really keep each track fresh, and although there is clearly a huge range of musical styles, somehow Michael manages to make the whole thing completely coherent. His keyboard playing (only keyboards) never dominates the ensemble, yet there are constant ideas flowing back and forth. His use of the sound palettes available is always well chosen ; mellotrons, percussive glockenspiels, tiny pianos, old wurlitzers, etc. However, what is clear is that this is no solo record, but a true group project that live must be very exciting to hear indeed! The recording technique and sound also used on this record is also very interesting, at times clear and at others heavily treated, all of which (I imagine) is intended.

Highly recommended to all those who love King Crimson, rock, out jazz, Human Feel, downtown scene, pygmies...!         

Listen and download from their Bandcamp page.     

© stef

Read More

Alexander Hawkins - All There, Ever Out (Babel Label, 2012) *****

Reviewed by Joe

More original music from the UK, and a very nice one too! The young generation of UK jazzers keep on producing refreshing new music that respects the previous generation and yet builds on newer concepts. Along with the Polish scene (a little more dark in concept) the UK seems to be capable of turning out music which is truly 'genre bending' and at the same time be also accessible. When I talk about 'these' groups I think of the new generations involved with the Loop Collective, F-Ire, the LIMA and several others on the UK scene. The music that is being produced seems to be happily embraced by the younger generation of jazz lovers, meaning that the contemporary music and free-improvisation scene stays healthy and vibrant.   

Alexander Hawkins' new offering, the second I think, with his ensemble consisting of Orphy Robinson (vibes/marimba), Otto Fischer (guitar), Hannah Marshall (cello), Dominic Lash (bass), and Javier Carmona (drums) is one of these wonderful such groups. A group that produces a music that is looking for new ways to play old forms, but that in no way compromises itself (not unlike that of Taylor Ho Bynum). To a certain extent it kind of reminds me of modern day Andrew Hill way of thinking and composing. The compositions are wonderful pieces full of melody with interesting rhythmic twists and turns. Solos glide in and out of the music so naturally, giving the listener a view into the music which needs no concentration. You'll find yourself magically transported into the piece as if on a magic carpet ride. Tatum Totem III (Tk 2) rattles away like a train out of control, but who cares it's such fun to listen to. Ologbo (Double Trio) (Tk 1) is a wonderful guitar piano melody that is so awkward it has to be heard and at the same time it has a naive beauty which is perfectly balanced. The use of Orphy Robinson's marimba work is a master-stroke in this context, giving the music a wonderful combination of rhythm and melody, his solo features throughout are a highlight every time. But then again so is everyone. Cellist Hannah Marshall plays some excellent lines and solos on this record. One such moment is a fantastic duet between Dominic Lash and Ms Marshall on (Tk3) 'Owl (Friendly)/A Star Explodes 10,000 Years Ago, Seen By Chinese Astronomers' ... great title, wonderful duet! In fact it's difficult to decide what to write about on this album as there's so much to look at (I mean listen to). Ahab (Tk5) is like Beefheart meets Dolphy meets Hill meets Monk, quite a combination I suggest (?), and which also gives plenty of room to Hawkins himself to stretch out over a fine bucking bronco rhythm section.

Throughout the record there is a excellent balance of improvised music, composition and even humour (I suppose) as the melodies are what could be called 'playful', all are played with energy and precision. The final track 'So Very, Know' is a stark contrast to the rest of the album with an eerie Hammond organ that finally makes way for the atmospheric guitar of Otto Fischer who gently places chords giving the piece some still movement. In fact it's not unlike standing on a beach at night looking out into the darkness at the sea wondering 'I wonder what's out there'?     

This could be one of the albums of 2012, miss it at your peril. Or if Stef was writing this ....... Highly Recommended!

© stef

Read More

John Butcher and Toshimaru Nakamura - Dusted Machinery (Monotype Records 2011) *****

 By Joe Higham

Although a bit a of a late review this has to be one of my favourite releases from the end of 2011. John Butcher and Toshimaru Nakamura show how man can meet machine, an almost perfect blend (and also quite a feat), something I wouldn't of thought about when talking about duets. I should probably explain that for those not in the 'know' - and I wasn't either - that Toshimaru Nakamura's instrument is a no-input mixing desk(*). As there's no-input he doesn't mix other people, just himself, reacting with either his own sound or another player, in this situation the sonic palette of John Butcher, for me one of the most revolutionary sax players to be found at present. In fact the combination and collaboration couldn't be more well suited.

So, sax and no-input mixing board react together in a perfect blend of sound - squeaks, crackles, screeches, hiss, and other such noises. John Butcher's style blends beautifully with Nakamura's sound world and there are many moments when one really wonders who is responsible for which/what sound. Of course this has no importance as the record is heard not as two instruments but a blanket of sound that comes from somewhere inside your hi-fi system. It's almost as if the circuit boards were able to talk between themselves, singing away as resistors, capacitors, inductors, relays and diodes all happily finding a prefect harmony. In fact it's quite amusing to find that you're sitting totally transfixed listening to the hiss of a mixing table, something that one normally wouldn't associate with musical sound, yet you wait and see what the duo will conjure up next. Like Nate Wooley's solo record Dusted Machinery makes one question the pre formed ideas on traditional sound and instrumental technique in music. Of course John Butcher's saxophone does come out clearly (as a saxophone) at moments, yet somehow it's as if he's able to commune in complete synchronicity with Nakamura's mixing board and make sense (and music, even if sound based) out of what could be seen as an abstract association.

This is certainly not a record for those looking for melody in the traditional sense. Even if the four tracks have names - Leaven, Maku, Knead and Kobasu - there are no tunes as such, this record makes a fine balance between free improvisation and the world of noise. However it is, for me at least, a record with a constantly hypnotic quality which draws you into the two improvisers sound world, which is totally original. A very successful collaboration and one that asks the question where they could go from here?   

Buy from Instantjazz.

Buy from Monotype Records

* = If you wish to know what a mixing desk is then look it up on the web as it might take up a little too much room here to explain what it is, and of course how it works.

© stef

Read More