Owl - Mille Feuille (Sofa, 2020) ***½

By Keith Prosk

Signe Emmeluth (alto saxophone, electronics) and Karl Bjorå (guitar, electronics) play enchanting fantasias with a blend of composition and improvisation for 42 minutes across five tracks on Mille Feuille. Emmeluth and Bjorå play together frequently and have recorded with Emmeluth’s Amoeba and Spacemusic Ensemble; Owl is not a new grouping but this might be their first recording.

I first heard Emmeluth with Vetle Larsen (as Tigerfish & Lioncats) at Ingebrigt Håker Flaten’s Sonic Transmissions festival in 2016. Their second set still sticks in my mind as one of the strongest shows I’ve seen, with Emmeluth alternating between raging, fiery blows - like she was really trying to destroy the brass with a disintegrating wind - and quiet, textural breath- and spit-play. So I awaited her first few recordings eagerly, but was disappointed they did not match the range, technique, or emotivity of that performance; they seemed too jazzy, too composed, too sterile to me. Spacemusic Ensemble’s Is Okay Okay Is Certified from last year marked a transition towards looser, more textural compositions on her recordings; shedding the large ensemble, which often requires stricter composition, for an intimate duo here results in a more natural exchange, producing the first recording that seems closer to Emmeluth’s playstyle than composition style and is correspondingly her strongest recording yet.

The opening track is the sidelong “Upon Arrival You Forgot Why You Left.” It’s a topical connection but the album structure here, of a sidelong track with five short sketches, reminds me of the structure of Tortoise’s Millions Now Living Will Never Die or Oval’s 94diskont; and the proggy track structure, with sections of building layers (feuille) into a sonic melange separated by smart transitions, recalls “Djed” like the sputtering no-input mixing board might recall the glitchy “Do While.” These sections or superlayers combine breathy fluttering sax with purring no-input mixing board and soulful alto phrases with cosmic swells. Or rhythmic, marching clicks, stops, and mutes with cavernous digital water drops, valve releases, and overdubbed, infinite twinkling guitar arpeggios. Or dub bass droputs and sonar bleeps with sustained sax tones. Or bird calls and whistling tea kettles. It’s a delightfully textural trip constructed of studio-dubbed or live-looped lines from both musicians - whose sounds sometimes blend together - that ebb and flow with expert pacing. Despite that monolith of a track, the next vignette, “On The Lookout,” might be the standout track, with its eclectic mix of slow chord strum, sighing breath, pastoral flute-like effects, warbling sax, shakers, train horns, birdsong, relaxed pace, and spacious sound feeling like a lost recording from late-period Talk Talk or early-period Brokeback. We get a fiery altosolo from Emmeluth, complimented by detuned spidery guitar, on “Let’s Crackle” and the energy of a live performance actually begins to shine through this time. “Dive Deeper” and “Consensus” explore many of the same textures in different lights, with the former characterized by a bittersweet guitar melody emerging from the noise with a rocking bass lullaby and the latter becoming closer to ambient film score.

To continue the comparisons to other musicians above, I hear Emmeluth and Bjorå drawing from the wells of kosmische musik, film score, and new electroacoustic and electric sensibilities as much as from jazz. And like a fellow Dane’s work with yet another similar group in Spring Heel Jack, Emmeluth is almost uniquely able to cut through an electroacoustic maelstrom with powerfully vulnerable, soulful, human phrasing just like John Tchicai. By depending less on traditional composition and focusing more on mood and timbre, Emmeluth has produced her most promising recording. If you’ve not been wowed by her recordings yet, it’s time to give her another shot. And if you’ve not given her a shot, this is the place to start.

Mille Feuille is a CD-only release.

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Entr'acte - Soigne Ta Droite (Audiographic, 2019) *****

By Paul Acquaro

It begins with a crash, I suppose it's all 10 musicians striking at once. A lingering note from a flute blends into a bright melodic phrase carried by the piano and sax. A thrum from the bass and static laden electronic buzz provides a slightly textured musical canvas. The track, 'Perpetual Desk (for Ikue Mori)', is the shortest of the three on Soigne Ta Droite, clocking in at an intense 16 minutes.

From the moment of that first A-Hard-Day’s-Night-chord, even during the quietest passages, there is an insistent intensity that is both thrilling and a bit nerve wracking. Good nerve wracking that is, one that is defined by a unexpected turns and creative musicianship. Soigne Ta Droite is woodwind player/composer Ken Vandermark's first large ensemble recording in several years, the last being (I believe) 2015's  Resonance Ensemble's Double Arc. It captures forceful, rooted melodies as well as passionate improvisation in an utterly compelling way.

As the first track progresses, Vandermark's sax rides atop the doubled-up bass work of Jasper Stadhouders and Joe Williamson and the double drumming of Steve Heather and Didi Kern. Eventually the group comes together with an infectiously rhythmic melody. Trumpeter Nate Wooley and alto saxophonist Mette Rasmussen then follow with absorbing intertwining solos. The track ends with a sputter of electronics and a final crashing chord. The group then segues seamlessly to the heart of the recording, the nearly 25 minute 'Foundry (for Richard Serra)'. The thick bass lines and solid, soaring melody from the sax leaves one feeling like they may have actually wandered into a Sera sculpture. Sinuous sounds wend through solidly forged corridors, creating a feeling of being anchored to a undulating wave, but it takes a while to get there. The first half of the track is searching, experimenting, and discovering new ways to operate as a large ensemble. 

There are of course other excellent large groups working from a free jazz perspective, but as evidenced on the closing moments of the aforementioned track, delicate quasi-classical moments run into pure free playing, Vandermark seems to have mastered approaching a free jazz ensemble from the perspective of an orchestra.

What does that actually mean? Hell if I know, but check out the opening of the closing track 'Telegram (for Francis Picabia)', the electric bass provides a rhythmic counterpoint to the composed horn parts and buzzing electrons from Dieb 13. This is complex composed music delivered with the passion of free playing, never losing control, but delivering a satisfying punch. The recording was made for the lucky audience of the Artacts Festival for Jazz and Improvised Music in Austria in, 2018.

MUSICIANS:

HORNS
Nate Wooley (trumpet)
Mette Rasmussen (alto)
Ken Vandermark (reeds)

STRINGS
Jasper Stadhouders (electric bass & guitar)
Terrie Hessels (guitar)
Joe Williamson (acoustic and electric bass)

PERCUSSION
Elisabeth Harnik (piano)
Steve Heather (drums)
Didi Kern (drums)

TURNTABLES/ELECTRONICS
Dieb13 (Dieter Kovacic)

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Dancing in times of plague - the Corona Diaries (Part 2 of 2)

By Stef Gijssels

Mazen Kerbaj - The Corona Diaries (2020) ****

Lebanese trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj offers his own solo performance during corona times, from his lockdown in Berlin where he resides. His "Corona Diaries" include a literal diary that he kept during the period, and which can be read on his own blog. One of the things he writes is the following:

"And this brings in another similarity between this situation and others that I am familiar with: working in confinement, and working in reaction to an extreme situation. Since the first day of the lockdown, I can’t help but draw parallels with life in times of war, and more specifically the 2006 war, where all of Lebanon was closed off and under severe Israeli bombardment for 33 consecutive days. Besides the relative “safety” we have now, we are living in the same confinement (if not a more severe one), and most importantly we are in the same “waiting for something” situation without knowing when and how “what’s next” will arrive. Here, I have to say that for better or worse, I am the kind of artist who works best in reaction to something, and today, just like 2006 or another extreme situation (the assassination of journalist, friend and mentor Samir Kassir in 2005 comes to my mind), I find myself in a rather exciting creative moment".

This is somehow a period of war. Emotional reaction creates art. Kerbaj has always had a 'political' drive in his music, but also a very creative one, going beyond the boundaries of the expected, as in his "Walls Will Fall" album, performed by 49 trumpet players, yet he is equally familiar with solo trumpet albums.

On this album, he uses his usual assortment of little objects to alter the tone of his trumpet, and without seeing him, it's almost impossible to identify how he does it (I can recommend to check out the video at the bottom of his blog to get an idea). Nevertheless, the music is great.  It is desolate, intimate, sensitive and moving, despite its austere limitations of the single acoustic instrument.

Check out his blog too. It is very insightful, funny and creative. His comic books and visual art are worth discovering too if you're not familiar with them.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.


Christian Pruvost & Peter Orins - lund'in fine #1 (Self, 2020) ***½

This album by French trumpeter Christian Pruvost and drummer Peter Orins consists of one 45 minute improvisation which is aptly called "13 mai 2020". Both are possibly best known internationally for their collaborations with Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura in the quartet Kaze and in the Satoko Fujii Orchestra. Even if the word seems a little out of place in this context, I would call the music on this album "pleasant", in the sense that it is easy to listen to, agreeable, not really emotionally hindred by the need to express solitude, fear or other feelings of dread because of the current situation. It feels more like a happy meeting of two musicians who are released from their confinement. And despite the length of the improvisation, the duo manages to keep it interesting throughout. A welcome change of tone in this series.

It has a sequel by Patrick Guionnet on voice and electronics and Peter Orins on drums. It is also aptly called "2". This is not jazz, but performance music, with Guionnet reading, then shouting a text by the controversial French author and performer Jean-Louis Costes. The violence increases as the French text develops and the vocal sounds get changed and amplified by electronics. Screams and heavy drums lead to a sonic tsunami.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.



Susana Santos Silva - The Same Is Always Different (Bandcamp, 2020) ***

Here is what Susana Santos Silva wrote on Facebook when making the album available, with the current situation in the US and the pandemic creating a feeling of impotence against real virus and the virus of stupidity and racism:

"In moments like this nothing makes sense anymore. The meaning of life gets lost in wars, injustices, suffering, pain, evil and all the other insanities human kind is able to do or let happen for no reason I can possibly understand. I recorded an album during my April/May quarantine and now I don't know what to do with it... because it feels meaningless to even talk about music... or maybe it's a great time to do it after all. This album was planned to be released on June 5th. But, until then I will make it available for download for no money but for some of your love. If you want to buy it, I please ask you to donate the 10 euros that the album would cost (or whatever you can afford) directly to any bail fund, food or crisis fund or any other cause close to you that speaks to your heart. this world is extremely sick and there are innumerable extraordinary people trying to make it better. let's help them. Thank you". 

On this 'album' she brings us two short pieces, the first one called "Same", the second "Different". On the first one, the trumpet tone is electronically altered, adding some noise and multiple layers of sound that slowly and monotonously proceed without much change like water flowing down a river, but ending with one fragile high-pitched tone at the end. The second track starts with a ferocious and raw ground tone, the kind of volume for which you require quite some lung capacity to achieve, with timbral multiphonics. Whereas the first track offers a resigned calm, the second has an insistent sense of urgency and nervousness, even if it is equally monotonous. It is the same, in a way, but also different. In a way, like our lives, like this world out there.  Listen and download from Bandcamp.

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Dancing in times of plague - the Corona Diaries (Part 1 of 2)

By Stef Gijssels

You wonder what's happening in the world. Viruses and Violence. Death and Injustice. Racism and Madness. There are few words that can capture what is happening. There are few words that can capture the danger and the strangeness of the isolation we live in. The lockdown has proven to be a source of inspiration for musicians, with no concerts and no travel, options are limited, but to be productive and creative in other ways. Below is a list of albums that were released dedicated to corona pandemic, its isolation and its consequences for people.

Some music is evokative of the terror of the times, other music offers surprising moments of "light in the darkness". Check them out.

Various Artists in Lockdown - Danse Macabre Vol. 3 and Vol. 4 (Objet-A, 2020) ****

On April 13, we published this post on Gianni Gebbia's initiative to revive the Danse Macabre, the 'danse of the death', as a collective creative project for musicians to share and improvise on each other's music through digital exchange of material.

The collection offers an amalgam of styles and genres, from classical - a beautiful sarabande of viola da gamba and theorbo - over rock music, solemn solo trumpet to electronic turntable madness. If on the previous albums some stylistic unity could be found, it is absent here, apart from the common context of the corona pandemic. The strength of the album is also its weakness, or the opposite. As a listener you are forced to be more open to music that is normally well below your attention radar, illustrating the pandemic's unexpected consequence of connecting people who would never have met otherwise. Confinement leads to openness. A strange observation.

Listen and download on Bandcamp.


Ben Goldberg - Plague Diary (BAG Productions, 2020) ***½

As mentioned in our "Virtual Gig" overview, clarinetist Ben Goldberg decided to take the opportunity to produce one solo piece per day, starting on March 19. So far, the album contains 63 pieces. The music ranges from exercises in style to real strong improvisations, with carefully arranged multilayered compositions for variety. In contrast to what you might expect, many of the tracks are joyful and light-hearted, as on April 3. You would expect that the confinement starts to weigh on the artist, resulting in more gloomy and depressed sounds by the end of May, but that is barely the case. Even May 20 still offers a carefully crafted optimistic composition, although I must say that the last days - so far - sound somewhat darker.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.


Brandon Evans - The Grove (2020) ****

I am not sure whether Brandon Evans' The Grove is really a COVID-19 inspired album, but in terms of timing (May 11), in terms of concept (solo performance) and tone (not very upbeat), we could conclude that it fits in this series. Maybe one additional clue may be that his electronic alter ego, called Evil Robot Hustler also released an album called COVID-33 (picture on the right).

The saxophonist and sound artist is possibly best known from his collaborations with Anthony Braxton and Sonny Simmons.

His music is warm and delicate, with the occasional synth sound to give the solo sax some more context.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.



Toshinori Kondo - Beyond Corona, Volume One (2020) ***

Japanese jazz luminary Toshinori Kondo adds his vision to things. For many years now he has altered his trumpet tone electronically, and things are not different on this album, with lots of reverb, phasers, phlangers, echo, chorus, and what have you. It is still technically a solo trumpet performance, even if it sounds at times like a full orchestra, including a rhythm section.

I am not a fan of this kind of music, so I won't judge it either.


Kyle Bruckmann - Draußen ist Feindlich (2020) **½

American oboist Kyle Bruckmann adds his own vision on the corona pandemic, with "Draußen Ist Feindlich" (it's dangerous outside), based on the lyrics by Einsturzende Neubauten:

"Es wird hell
Draussen ist feindlich
Schliess dich ein mit mir
Hier sind wir sicher
Ich liebe dich
Vergiss es"

(It's getting light The outside world is hostile Lock yourself in with me We are safe here I love you Forget it)

Bruckmann insists on the liner notes that these are improvisations, un-overdubbed and unedited. But the tone of his oboe and English horn are duly altered electronically in real time. This results in suppressed sounds, sickening sounds, twirling sounds, reverberating, gliding, multiphonics, unpredictable, strange, eery, synthetic, unreal, quiet and loud, with lots of electronic bleeps and squeaks. The two most acoustic tracks (A3 and A5) get my preference, and I wish the whole album had been like that. But it's of course not the artist's objective to create something pleasant. So you endure the hostile  environment. I'm not certain that the cats on the album's cover slept so peacefully during the recording itself.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.


Kyle Quass & Richard Bonnet & Olivier Hestin - Locked Down (2020) ***

We get more "asynchronous free jazz" from France, with American Kyle Quass on trumpet, and French musicians Richard Bonnet on guitar & banjo, and Olivier Hestin on drums. The three musicians sent sound files to each other and improvised on each other's material. They call it "a shining light in a sea of darkness", the possibility to reach out to each other and to be creative. Even if the context determines the origin of their collaboration, it's hard to find any corona-related content in their music. Some pieces, such as "Wind Chimes" are even joyous and light-hearted. Some pieces are special, such as the unusual duet between banjo and trumpet on "Over Yonder". In short, its a good album, with good quality music and good interaction despite its "asynchonous" creation, but with little emotional reference to the pandemic.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

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A Free-Jazz Playlist for Justice

Dear readers,

These are difficult times, not just for the African American community, but also for civil rights, free speech, and Democracy in general. Several websites, clubs, radio stations, artists, etc. have been putting together playlists of music that focus on human and civil rights, police violence and the right to protest. We think this is a good idea, and feel strongly that free jazz still is a politically relevant way of expression. 

We're also putting together such a playlist, which is at the moment, only beginning.  

You can find the list here, (on Apple Music). 

Sincerely, 

The Free Jazz Blog 

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Carl Testa - Sway Prototypes Volume 3 (self-released, 2020) ****

By Keith Prosk

Carl Testa continues documenting the possibilities of his electroacoustic environment, Sway, with two forty-minute tracks on Sway Prototypes Volume 3. As I mentioned in the review of Volumes 1 & 2 , which ended up being a personal favorite of the year , Sway feels like Testa synthesized Braxton’s various musical systems into a personal vision with rare depth that might be at the forefront of interactive electronic performance. While losing the initial impact of hearing the system in the 2017-2018 recordings of Volumes 1 & 2 might depreciate the enthusiasm here, the 2019 recordings of Volume 3 take the project in meaningful directions and establish possible pathways to look forward to, whether it’s newly-heard interactions with Sway or nuanced interactions due to new musicians in the ensemble.

Track 2, “Midst,” features the primary sextet of Volumes 1 & 2, with Testa (contrabass, electronics), Erica Dicker (violin), Junko Fujiwara (cello), Louis Guarino Jr. (trumpet), Andria Nicodemou (vibraphone), and Anne Rhodes (voice). As a result, a lot of the acoustic dynamics and timbres are similar but this set features more extended technique from everyone but Nicodemou and Testa and, whereas Guarino Jr., Nicodemou, and Rhodes really shone in the previous volumes, this volume balances the spotlight across the ensemble, with Dicker and Fujiwara finally coming to the forefront for some time to really shred their strings. Like the last volume, Rhodes’ voice is often heavily modified (she must know how to readily trigger Sway) almost instantly, so that the delayed, distorted, etc. effect is overlayed while she’s performing. Unlike the last volume, effects on the other musicians are delayed to the point that they are often not heard until those musicians stop playing, and the acoustic signal is often so heavily modified that it’s only identified by a similar movement and cadence to the original. So what happens is that the musicians currently playing acoustically might be improvising with the electric ghosts of the previous musicians that played. Of course, more than one musician is playing at a time, so the result is a kind of funhouse maze with several people running through rotating warped mirrors, or a delightfully dense piece that’s structurally, timbrally, and conceptually weighty enough to keep you coming back. Though the kind of electroacoustic mimickry I described for the first two volumes isn’t as prevalent here, the dreamlike state or psychedelia this system can induce still is with these newly-documented interactions.

Track 1, “Shroud,” brings back only Testa and Rhodes and introduces Alejandro T. Acierto (contrabass clarinet), Hanna Brock (violin), and Aaron Getsug (saxophones and clarinet). None of the new musicians have recorded previously with Testa or Rhodes and they’re all relatively up-and-comers. Readers might remember Brock from Ben LaMar Gay’s Downtown Castles Can Never Block Out The Sun and Getsug from his recordings with John Tchicai or Joshua Abrams and Hamid Drake in Ernest Dawkins Chicago 12. While the electroacoustic mimickry of volumes 1 & 2 isn’t really here either (with a notable exception of sax and electric voice sometimes blending together), the acoustic mimickry is, with the contrasting range of bass and violin mirroring that of the clarinet and contra clarinet, and with the contra clarinet sometimes sounding like the bass, to the point that I think the ensemble is trying to trick or game Sway in some way. However, the electric environment produced is drowned in reverb at certain points in the track. Getsug’s psychedelic sax is usually swimming in it, to the point he sounds like a multi-tracked Dickie Landry or Trans Am’s “1999.” It’s fun but out of control; cheesy but in a good way. Besides a spirit of letting loose, this new ensemble can bring out a cinematic, cathartic quality in the music, like around the 10-minute mark, when Brock’s and Testa’s arcos emotively waltz together before being met with a kind of kitschy sax solo and complimenting contra clarinet. The mood of this ensemble is totally different than the primary sextet otherwise featured despite playing within the same framework, meaning that this system can always remain fresh with a few new perspectives.

The various students of Braxton each have their esteemed projects and I believe that Testa has finally developed his with Sway. The density, humor, innovation, psychedelia of this project surely make this essential listening.

Sway Prototypes Vol. 3 is available digitally and on CD.

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Sara Schoenbeck and Wayne Horvitz - Cell Walk (Songlines, 2020) ****

By Eyal Hareuveni

Seattle-based pianist-composer Wayne Horvitz and Brooklyn-based bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck, known for her work with Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Orchestra and Wet Ink new music ensemble, met for the first time twenty years ago at the Time Flies Festival in Vancouver, Canada, and since then kept up the collaboration. Schoenbeck became part of Horvitz chamber jazz Gravitas Quartet (with trumpeter Ron Miles and cellist Peggy Lee) and later of the ensemble Some Places Are Forever Afternoon (based on the poems of Richard Hugo), joined performance of Horvitz’ fusion quartet Sweeter Than The Day, and other new music, orchestral works of Horvitz, including for a piece for orchestra and a string quartet These Hills of Glory.

Almost twenty years later, in July 2019, Schoenbeck and Horvitz finally recorded a duo album at the Pyatt Hal l in Vancouver, enjoying the hall’s great acoustics and its Steinway D piano. A few tracks were recorded six months later in Brooklyn, with amplified piano and electronics added to the mix. Cell Walk references Cecil Taylor’s album Cell Walk for Celeste (Candid, 1988), and Horvitz's piece by this name was written in memory of Taylor just after he passed away. The 17 original pieces of this album highlight the duo’s great affinity for experimenting with unorthodox extended techniques and textures, compositional strategies, and improvisational ideas, always in the service of beautiful melodies and songs.

The profound, common language of Horvitz and Schoenbeck captures the listener immediately. There is a rare kind of relaxed intimacy and a natural fluidity in their interplay. There is also an expressive synergy that is focused most of the time on reserved, lyrical tones, and an organic and transparent basis that keeps enriching the melodic, chamber conversations. Schoenbeck demonstrates the full sonic palette of the modern bassoon as a classical instrument that feels at home in many musical arenas, especially on Horvitz’ playful homage “For Lou Harrison”, her own composition “Deep Well Well”, and the open improvisations where she and Horvitz added subtle electronics. And Horvitz and Schoenbeck sound as simply enjoying crisscrossing the worlds of free improvisation (only four pieces here) and carefully notated chamber, new music, and jazz, but without falling into distinct patterns. Some of Horvitz’ canonical favorite compositions are interpreted here as “No Blood Relation” (from The Snowghost Sessions, Songlines, 2018), “Ironbound” (originally performed by Sweeter Than The Day, Songlines, 2001), and the earliest “American Bandstand” (from the self-titled album, Songlines, 2000), all performed with grace and elegance, beauty and imagination.

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Martin Clarke, Otto Willberg, Emil Karlsen – Shopping For Images (Open Ear Music, 2020) ****½

By Fotis Nikolakopoulos
For the past at least four to five years there’s a strong current of younger generation British improvisers working and producing wonderful results throughout all fields of improvisational musics. Smaller off the radar labels (like Luminous, Raw Tonk, Heave Petting and Tombed Visions to name a few) are hubs of exciting sounds that remind the listener the urgency that the recordings of the first generation of European improvisers had. Those guys –men but many women as well- bring a breath of fresh air in the sometimes stale waters of mannerism careering can bring.
This trio of Clarke on alto saxophone, Wilberg on double bass and Karlsen on drums is my first listening from one of those labels, Open Ear Music. Although in theory this could be a classic sax-bass-drums formation, Shopping For Images goes all the way far from it. Thankfully. Even though the trio stays on the verge of free jazz and improvisation, they try to incorporate melody – or at least melodic lines coming out from the sax- in a way that I sensed a battle. A battle between the tremendous work of the bass (another excellent recording for Otto Willberg of which I’m a big fan by now) and the drums on one side and the sax on the other. The, so called for this cd, rhythm section manages to play in unison and present a body of polyrhythmic disturbances so soothing for our, in need of sonic surprises, ears. The sax of Clarke (you can listen on his different sides from his solo recordings on the same label) makes his own voice quite articulate: he either follows back the other two, leads or makes room from them. His phrases seem distant but at the same time quite spacious for Willberg and Karlsen to present their ideas and responses.
The three tracks off of Shopping For Images could form one longer one. Their titles present, at least in the form of suggestions, their ideas and thoughts on how to make new music up to a certain point. I hate generalizations but, yes, they seem to be a vibrant part of many voices coming from the British Islands right now. Let’s hope that this dystopia will not silence their artistic voices. So, let’s be on the lookout for some support.

@koultouranafigo

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Music Blackout Tuesday

It would be presumptive to say that we are a part of the music industry, but we would like to support this day of reflection. Read more about Music Blackout Tuesday here.

Also, the following is a message from ESP-Disk's Steve Holtje that captures the moment well:

ESP-Disk’ founder Bernard Stollman began his legal career working for civil rights lawyer Florynce Kennedy. Throughout his life he was openly politically radical. Were he still alive, he would be deeply concerned with the Black Lives Matter movement and the current turmoil in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. So when we became aware of the music industry drive to make this Tuesday, June 2, a business blackout “day to disconnect from work and reconnect with our community,” we knew we had to participate.

Therefore, ESP-Disk will be closed on Tuesday. Furthermore, all proceeds from ESP’s Bandcamp pages and espdisk.com sales on Tuesday will be donated to the Know Your Rights Camp Legal Defense Initiative (Colin Kaepernick's charity: https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/05/29/colin-kaepernick-george-floyd-protests).

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LDP Trio & Thomas Lehn – Willisau (Jazzwerkstatt, 2019) ****½

By Nick Ostrum

At the risk of unintentionally making this sound conventional, Willisau is exactly what I have come to expect from contemporary free improv practiced by its finest practitioners. This is vanguard music, but it is not shocking. Recorded live at the legendary Willisau Jazz Festival in 2017, this album is dynamic, but it never reaches the ear-bleeding 11 of Nigel Tufnel or the raucous free-for-all of Globe Unity. Per pianist Jacques Demierre, the quartet’s approach focuses not just on freedom, but also on responsibility: “A kind of freedom where ‘free play’ means above all letting others play whatever they want, and as a ‘minimal’ position (recalling philosopher Ruwen Ogien’s notion of ‘minimal ethics’), never play anything that could possibly hinder them.” (For those of you interested or more prone to nineteenth century Anglophone philosophy, Ogien’s “minimal ethics” seems to be a contemporary take on John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism. Anyway…) The music is ludic (tracks are named “Monkeybusiness” 1 and 2, after all), but not in the carnivalesque way that the Dutch masters (Breuker, Bennink, ICP) are. It is engaging and, at times, catchy, but hardly euphonic. At times, melodic statements slowly develop out of simple, disparate sounds, but they are never fully realized. The whispered folksy reed-melody at around the 15-minute mark is a case-in-point. Here, when it verges too close to the mellifluous and too far beyond its rudimentary elements, it quickly dissolves into whistles, high-pitched beeps, and percussive piano chords.

Monkeybusiness 2 starts with a bluesy duo between saxophonist Urs Leimgruber and bassist Barre Philips that approaches a more recognizably jazz vernacular, albeit with all the squeaks and whistles of contemporary saxophone practice. This piece has a more classic, European free improv feel to it. After a false start a couple of minutes in, Demierre enters full force around the fourth minute, and analogue synth-virtuoso Thomas Lehn doubles and manipulates his piano, creating an echo effect. Phillips then falls into a folk melody that steers the track into muffled, dreamy territory. Lehn, then, breaks the trance with a string of clanky sci-fi sounds, which the rest of the band then counter with their own acoustic clanks and clumps, which, in turn, Lehn seems to refract. After some compelling back and forth, the track crescendos into a quartet of abstract, blocky melodic and rhythmic fragments. And then, it fades.

Impressively, through all of this kerfuffle, the musicians avoid any outright collisions or distracting tangents. Demierre may have planted this idea, but he, Leimgruber, Philips and Lehn do play impeccably well together. They jumble and interweave, but they also listen and respond. In other words, they deploy this minimalist ethics to maximum effect. The result is complex, variegated, clunky, distorted and absolutely beautiful.

Here is a video of the same group performing a year and a half later (August 2019) at Kaleidophone in Ulrichsberg, Austria. It should give you some idea of the listening experience you are in for with Willisau.

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