Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile (Constellation, 2013) *****

By Martin Schray (with a little help of Colin Green)

Before the release of Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens Des Couleurs Libres in 2011, Matana Roberts announced that it was the first in a conceptual project in twelve-chapters, including notation and free improvisation, historical storytelling, and theatrical elements, with which she would explore family history as well as African-American culture and life during the last 300 years. (The series’ protagonist is Marie Thérèse Metoyer – also known as CoinCoin – a freed slave, doctor, planter and business woman.) It’s a highly ambitious and complex endeavor (some call it big-mouthed) that could have gone terribly wrong – but the result was one of the greatest and most interesting albums of the last ten years.

On Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile, Roberts again invokes the great and complex narrative of her Afro-American/Native-American ancestors using the handed down tradition of blues, field songs, even dixieland and gospel, but also free jazz. The music conjures Sun Ra’s creativity and John Coltrane’s spirituality as well as Albert Ayler’s vision and the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s roots in African music (Roberts is an associate AACM member). Instead of the large improvising, roaring, and tumultuous ensemble she had in Chapter One (all in all 15 musicians), she has chosen a smaller band here - Shoko Nagai (piano), Jason Palmer (trumpet), Thomson Kneeland (bass), Tomas Fujiwara (drums) and Jeremiah Abiah (vocals). One finds the same exuberance, disparity, eclecticism and eruptions as before, to which Roberts now adds lyricism and tightness, by way of contrast with the cacophony of other passages. The adoption of the old tunes and laments is enriched by voices (all the band members sing) and tone and tension are enhanced by the inclusion of an opera singer – Jeremiah Abiah – whose tenor is the icing on the cake. In live performances Roberts seems to switch his voice on and off, like interspersed historical comments, in order to portray the complexity of these times. It’s a very visual dimension, yielding emotional images of individual and collective pain, rebellion, desperation, pride and shame. Roberts calls this: “panoramic sound quilting”.

Prominent highlights from the 18 pieces on the album are “Invocation”, the first track, which sounds as if Coltrane has risen from his grave to play a new version of “Alabama”; or “Amma Jerusalem School” and “Was the Sacred Day”, in which Roberts raps like a Creole witch quoting “Joshua Won the Battle of Jericho” and “Sometimes I feel like a Motherless Child”, and children’s prayers in front of a simple, repetitive trumpet riff. When she recites the old gospel: “I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, his eyes on the sparrow, and I know He watches over me” the apparent ray of hope is immediately followed by a desolate saxophone tune. And there’s “Woman Red Racked”, a call-and-response gospel, in which Roberts’ soulful phrase: “I love you, black woman” gets under your skin. Her approach is angry on the one hand – an agonizing, torn-up, and fragmented evocation of musical ghosts – but there’s also hope and beauty in it.

In the 1990s Wynton Marsalis attacked Lester Bowie, and with him the Art Ensemble of Chicago and AACM. If he were to hear the coherent mix of traditional music and free improvisation on this album, he might want to bite into his instrument.

This just might be the most socially relevant music (not just jazz) being made at the moment. My album of the year.

Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile is available on vinyl (including a download) and CD.

Listen to “Amma Jerusalem School” and “For it is” here:



You can buy the album from the label’s website cstrecords.com or instantjazz.com.

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Christophe Berthet - Malval (Creative Sources, 2012) ****½

By Stef  

You can't listen to everything. We try to guide the reader to new music that's coming our way. Sometimes it is even tough for the guides to keep track of what's happening. While browsing again through the hundreds of albums that have not been reviewed, and deciding to ditch from our list all the albums that were not released this calendar year, just to make things more manageable, I came across this little gem from Swiss saxophonist Christophe Berthet.

After studies of piano and flute, he switched to the saxophone in 1986, and still plays in several bands of different jazz styles, and what he presents here, can only make us applaud his choice of instrument.

I only know him from his album "Silo", on Leo, with guitarist Vinz Vonlanthen, but what he does here on his own, playing solo in the Malval Chapel near Geneva, is of an immense beauty. Sure, John Butcher comes to mind, in terms approach, the choice of the setting and the careful exploration of sound dynamics, space and multiphonics. Yet the performance is of a solemn authenticity, as if the artist was describing the pain of experiencing aesthetic beauty, evocating the subtle shades of spiritual purity, deep emotional affection and sonic joy. That kind of thing.

There is not much else to say, I can only recommend that you listen to it on Bandcamp, and then try to get your copy if it's still available at all.

Pure beauty.

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Kit Downes & Tom Challenger: Wedding Music (Loop Records, 2013) *****

Reviewed by Joe

Gothic jazz arrives, and in grand style! There aren't many organ and brass/woodwind duos, not that I can think of? One record that comes to mind is the glorious "PIPEDREAM" from Keith Tippett and Mark Charig on Ogun records, another - although I haven't heard it - was Jan Garbarek and Kjell Johnsen on "Aftenland" in 1979. Here from Loop records is "Wedding Music", an apt title for music such as this played by Kit Downs (organ) and Tom Challenger (tenor sax).

From the very start the music is majestic, there's no other way to describe such a sound. "Wedding Music" is exactly that, swirling organ just like one hears coming from the local church on wedding days. Kit Downes manages to coax some extraordinary sounds from the pipes. Clicks, atonal clusters, thuds, throbbing sounds, pulsating sub-woofer noises, they're all in there. I guess a lot of the music is improvised yet the duo manage to introduce melodic content into their music whilst finding some really interesting sounds.

As the album progresses the duo move further into a world of sound that is quite unique. Although the albums starts off (quite) normally with the title track "Wedding Music", the duo start to really experiment with textures over the remaining pieces. "Shos" (tk2) has a very sinister type of melody line, here Kit Downes responds to Tom Challenger's melodic improvisations with some serious sonic blasts which make your whole room rumble! "Optics" (tk3) on the other hand starts with tiny tone clusters which hang in the air. You can really hear the atmosphere of the church (recorded in St Paul’s, Huddersfield, UK) as these delicate tones meld together with the sax sounding like a boat lost way out at sea. By the time you get to "Cooks" (tk4) you're ready for anything, and indeed what sounds like a pneumatic drill is in fact the organ! However, interestingly the duo turn this piece into an intimate sound world with the tenor sax playing some flusters of breathy sound over the gentle but dissonant chordal sound.

The last tracks really come together beautifully in an unexpected way. "Restart" (tk5) has sub-sonic chords that hang so delicately in the air forever. The sax touches at these chords like a painter just adding slight dashes of colour to a canvas, aware that one mark too many could spoil the balance totally. "Rat Catcher", the last track is full of silences that are broken by a wheezing organ, or broken bagpipes, yet the duo manage to squeeze a beautiful major chord right at the last second bringing to an end this unique album.  

A very highly recommended album.  

If you don't know Tom Challenger or Kit Downes it's worthwhile checking out some of the groups they're are involved in (although not together): [Ma], the collective group Outhouse, Troyka, The Golden Age of Steam are just a few names that I know. If you visit the individual websites you'll get to discover a very wide range of interesting musical projects.

You can find the album (only a digital download) on the Loop Collective bandcamp page.

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Mary Halvorson Septet – Illusionary Sea (Firehouse 12, 2013) ****½

By Troy Dostert

After the Mary Halvorson Quintet released its stellar recording last year, Bending Bridges, there were a lot of folks wondering how guitarist extraordinaire Halvorson could top it.  I’m not sure if she’s done that here, but she’s certainly taken her compositional ability in even more interesting directions, largely due to a couple recent additions to the group that now have her working with a septet.  The result expands the palette available to Halvorson, and she takes full advantage of it to produce seven intricate, multi-layered pieces that reward—no, demand—repeated listening, lest one miss out on the subtle touches that are abundant here.

The two new players here, Ingrid Laubrock (tenor sax) and Jacob Garchik (trombone) are perfect complements to Halvorson’s regular partners: Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet), Jon Irabagon (alto sax), John Hébert (bass), and Ches Smith (drums).  They are terrific soloists, to be sure—but Halvorson is especially smart in weaving them into the rest of the ensemble, allowing additional aspects of her knotty compositions to reveal themselves.  This is evident from the first cut, “Illusionary Sea (#33),” which begins with a terrific opening passage from just the horns before the rest of the band comes in to further develop the melodic base of the tune.  Then once Garchik begins his solo, the rest of the horns surge and recede underneath, gradually sustaining the momentum with the rhythm section to keep the song going in ever-surprising and interesting directions.  Halvorson’s strong sense of structural integrity is always present; even during a freer section about midway through the song, the sense of forward-moving propulsion is always present, largely thanks to Ches Smith’s solid anchor underneath the rest of the band.  It’s one of the strongest cuts on the record, and announces convincingly that Halvorson has hit this one out of the park.

Fortunately, the rest of the release is just as compelling.  With a judicious balance of more groove-oriented, full-bore pieces like the second track, “Smiles of Great Men (#34),” where Halvorson in particular gets to rock out, and slower, more deliberate and textured tracks like “Red Sky Still Sea (#31),” the record strikes the perfect balance between individual freedom for each musician and the kind of rich, full ensemble voicings that only a larger band can produce.  It is remarkable, actually, how much Halvorson is able to get out of these musicians; at times this sounds like a much larger band.

I should also add a word about the recording quality: it’s outstanding.  This music should be heard on a nice stereo or a good set of headphones.  Each musician is captured brilliantly and distinctly, and for listening to a band this tight, this good, doing it justice really requires hearing what everyone’s doing—and in this case, it’s all captured wonderfully.

Halvorson has been on a roll lately, and she shows no signs of letting up.  This is another fine addition to her impressive (and rapidly-growing!) catalog.  For anyone putting together a short list of improvising artists producing music that is at the same time complex, challenging, and remarkably accessible as well, Halvorson should be on it.

You can buy from  Instantjazz.com.

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Body/Head - Coming Apart (Matador, 2013) ****

A Deep Listening Review 2/2

By Martin Schray

When Sonic Youth broke up due to Kim Gordon’s and Thurston Moore’s separation many long-time fans were shocked fearing that the band would split for good and – worst case scenario – the band members would be in a state of shock which would affect solo releases as well. As it turns out just the opposite has happened. State of affairs is that Sonic Youth has just been put on ice and that the band members pursue other projects: Moore has launched duos with Mats Gustafsson, an album with his band Chelsea Light Moving, collaborations with Bill Nace and Joe McPhee and soon there will be an album with John Zorn (among other projects), Lee Ranaldo released a very beautiful solo album, Steve Shelley has joined Disappears and Kim Gordon has been focusing on Body/Head, her noise guitar duo with Bill Nace.

Gordon and Nace started Body/Head as a pure instrumental project, but in the meantime she has also started to sing (which is very close to spoken word here). Although the music is still largely improvised, they have begun to write actual songs as well and the result is that Coming Apart is the album which - of all the projects listed above - is the one that stands closest in the Sonic Youth tradition, at least in the one of their more adventurous recordings.

The last two (and by far the longest) tracks of Coming Apart show where the project started and in which direction it has evolved. The beginning of “Black” is a massive guitar-feedback-drone that reminds of the enormous, self-indulgent outro of Sonic Youth’s “The Diamond Sea” and their live orgies of the Daydream Nation days when then they crashed their instruments into each other. Then Gordon’s blurry, indistinct vocals drop in, finally quoting Nina Simone’s “Black is the color of my true love’s hair”. “Frontal”, the final piece, presents her drowsy and warped lyrics in front of echoing, repetitive guitar samples, an alternative art rock riff and shredded fragments. It is a broken atmosphere which is created here, Kim Gordon sounds like a lost soul reciting violent fantasies.

The first part of the album is more song-orientated. Gordon and Nace meander through bumpy rock songs like “Can’t help you”, minimal one-chord compositions like “Aint” that sound like The Doors’ “The End”, intimate vocals/electro miniatures like “Murderess” or classic monotonous Kim-Gordon-Sonic-Youth album tracks like “Abstract”.

It’s not an easily accessible album, in spite of the Sonic Youth similarities. Voice and lyrics are agonizing sometimes, but it is a healing agony, though. I adore Kim Gordon, and I guess I always will.

Coming Apart is available as a double LP and single CD.

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Body/Head – Coming Apart (Matador, 2013) ****

A Deep Listening Review 1/2

By Tom Burris

One arpeggio electric guitar chord plays throughout the opening track while Kim Gordon's ghostly voice speak-sings “I can only think of you in the abstract” repeatedly.  The other guitar drones on one note, goading the singer toward the abyss.  It sets the pace nicely and braces the listener for the impending psychedelic sundown. 

Up to this point, Body/Head has released purely improvised recordings exclusively.  With Coming Apart, the formula changes a bit but the chemistry is the same.  They've chopped up their two-guitar skeletal sketches into song-sized chunks while retaining the looseness of their overall approach.  They've also refined their music for their Matador debut, their first recording that hasn't seen a limited release.  (It's also the only record they've released that's still in print.)  There are overdubs here, but they are kept to a minimum.  There is more of an architectural base present, but the general feeling is that the droning jams were molded into songs after the initial recording process, making Coming Apart function as a kind of  anorexic yin to Royal Trux's Twin Infinitives' dense yang. 

I bought this record on release day (last Tuesday) & the clerk asked me who I thought was going to have the best post-Sonic Youth band.  I said my money was on Body/Head, but that the Thurston Moore / John Moloney record was really good too.  Body/Head is certainly the most interesting project.  Kim is playing guitar in this band.  No bass.  Bill Nace normally plays guitar sitting on a chair, scraping and “preparing” the strings with pieces of wood and metal.  If you 're into serious noise guitar, Nace is your man.  In Body/Head he stands, mostly picking the strings like a regular dude.  And it still sounds boss. 

Lyrically, it's psychologically dark but creatively playful enough to be haunting without being creepy.  Musically, those two guitars are kept separated in the mix so you get Bill in one channel and Kim in the other.  You will not miss drums.  This is the duo that got Ikue Mori to play an acoustic drum kit for the first time in decades at a recent gig; so the fact that they took the purist route and left this recording percussion-free should be commended.  The purity of vision and/or the willpower to pass up the temptation to ask Ikue to play on these sessions (when they probably could have done so) is certainly more than could be expected from just about anybody making challenging guitar-based music.

On “Everything Left”, Gordon has overdubbed three separate vocal tracks, giving a slightly schizophrenic impression over long sustained guitar drones.  “Aint” is a post-noise-rock cover/salute to Nina Simone.  “Black” is a hypnotic and majestic post-everything cover/salute to Patty Waters, but the intensity Waters gave “Black is the Colour of My True Love's Hair” is expressed by Nace, not by Gordon's vocal, as he coaxes what honestly sounds like a one-man Metal Machine Music out of his amp!  On “Frontal,” Gordon sings “I feel so weak / so stupid too” as the music runs through several changes, culminating in a collage of feedback loop (from Nace), a 2-note loop (from Gordon) and a one-note drone on the bottom string of Gordon's guitar.  It is beautiful and intense in the way that “Venus In Furs” is beautiful and intense, but from the viewpoint of the bottom instead of the top.

Coming Apart is the sound of a band that can be pensive and confident, tentative and all-in, simultaneously.  Sensitive and aggressive, smart and dumb, beautiful and ugly, yin / yang, body / head. 

Watch:

Listen here.

You can buy from  Instantjazz.com.

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Round-Up: Oct 4, 2013

As Stef recently pointed out, our fortune here at the Freejazzblog is to be exposed to so much wonderful new music, and our curse is the unmanageable desire to listen and share every single one. So, sometimes we have to compromise and do a review 'round up' style ...

By Paul Acquaro

Chis Kelsey & What I Say - The Electric Miles Project (Self-released, 2013) ****

What are we now, some 40 years after Miles Davis unleashed On the Corner and the concerts documented on releases like Dark Magus and Agharta? Seemingly an evergreen source of inspiration, the nascent tunes and riffs of that bygone era serve as inspiration to saxophonist Chris Kelsey and his group What I Say. The group is Rolf Sturm on electric guitar, Jack DeSalvo on guitar, Joe Gallant on six string bass and Dean Sharp on drums (The double guitar line up … a little Pete Cosey/Reggie Lucas thing perhaps?)

The Electric Miles Project is a choice collection of tunes, showcasing the instrumental and improvisational prowess of the group. The powerhouse first track features excellent contributions from guitar and sax. The follow up 'Mad Love' is a smartly arranged original that draws its inspiration from Davis' more ambient and atmospheric motifs. Some other stand out tracks are the sitar flavored "Ife" and hard hitting interpretation of "Sivad" … and that just about covers the whole album.

Really great.


Elliot Sharp, Melvin Gibbs, Lucas Niggli - Crossing the Waters (Intakt, 2013) ****

A few weeks ago I wrote about two dark and turbulent free-jazz/metal albums: Slobber Pup and Black Host. Both are aggressive and uncompromising albums, and to that list I submit Elliot Sharp, Melvin Gibbs and Lucas Niggli's Crossing the Waters, a power-trio that balances heavy rhythms with atmospheric ramblings and inventive melodies.

Sharp's guitar is fierce, slathered in effects and could just as well be emitting fractal visualizations as it does musical notes - hell, maybe it is. Gibbs is fierce as well, his bass a rumbling and effective counter weight to Sharp's flights.  Niggli anchors the group, sitting snugly in the middle of the trio, providing the right amount of percussive pounding and momentum. The Intakt website explains that this recording came out of a one-off show at the Stone in NYC. The very next day, the three got together in the studio and created this incredible blend of avant jazz/rock/whatever.


Yves Reichmuth Quartet - Fingertongue (Veto, 2013) ****

Image from Veto Records

Indeed it is all fingers and tongues on this excellent release by Swiss guitarist Yves Reichmuth and bass clarinetist Lucien Dubuis.

Starting with the tension filled triplets that give 'Der Scharlatan / "...L'invisible Chemin" / Spine' its drive, the group launches into a hard hitting improvization that barely lets up until segueing into the next movement of the piece. But fear not, the gentler nature of the second movement is quickly twisted around by Dubuis' fearsome bass clarinetting (I'm hoping that I made that word up). You may know the bass clarinetist from his work with his own trio and some other groups, where his playing offers deep pockets and expertly wielded wild abandon, Reichmuth is a new name for me but he has a great partner in Dubuis, as his playing is both rhythmically engaging and textural. The rest of the group is Silvan Jeger on bass and Lionel Friedli on drums. One of the alluring aspects of this album is that the group veers between jarring grooves, atmospheric minimalism, melodic interludes and experimental sounds.


Lucien Dubuis Trio and the Spacetet - Design Your Future (Unit Records, 2013) ****½

Don't let the first few moments of the opening track fool you! The tasteful string quartet introduction doesn't last that long. Dubuis' low reeds and commanding syncopations wrests control from the strings quickly, and they are only to happy to oblige, adding a layer of Kashmir like intensity. Design Your Future announces itself loudly.

It's not all about dense grooves and pushing instruments to their limits. Counter melodies and the unusual arrangements of the string quartet bring a lot of atmosphere to the recording. They help add a dash of Raymond Scott like cartoon freneticism to  'Au Bois' and sonority and motion to the movements of 'Suite En Eb'. Dubuis' low reed playing is ever enjoyable. and the rhythm work of bassist/guitarist Roman Nowick and drummer Lionel Friedli is pitch perfect. The inclusion of the Spacetet string quartet piece string ensemble brings an enjoyable and new dimension to this trio's work.

The Spacetet is Estelle Beiner and Regula Schwab on violin, Isabelle Gottraux on viola and Barbara Gasser on cello.

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Ken Vandermark’s Topology Nonet feat. Joe McPhee - Impressions of POMusic (OkkaDisk, 2013) ****

By Martin Schray

In the liner notes to “Impressions of Po Music” Joe McPhee says that “the word “Po” (…) comes from philosopher Dr. Edward de Bono’s concept of lateral thinking” and was derived from “words like possible, positive, poetry and hypothesis”. He also said that “Po” was a language indicator to show that provocation was being used to move from a fixed set of ideas in an attempt to discover new ones. This concept had enabled McPhee to build his work, which is open to evolution and development, with the central idea of improvisation based upon composed themes. McPhee calls this “a journey of discovery rather than about destination.”

In the  1970s and 80s he was very often in Europe to play with European musicians, especially in Switzerland, where Werner X. Uehlinger started HatHut Records just to document his music. Around that time Ken Vandermark heard Joe McPhee’s album Tenor for the very first time and according to him this changed everything because since that moment he knew that this music was not only chaotic but “organized sound”, as he calls it.

In the meantime Vandermark and McPhee have been playing together very often and in 2009 Vandermark, Jeb Bishop, Tim Daisy and Dave Rempis played arrangements based on McPhee’s HatHut albums Topology, A Future Retrospective and Tenor, all of them albums which are typical for McPhee’s concept of Po Music. Finally, McPhee agreed on Vandermark’s suggestion to record an album with him as a soloist in front of a larger group playing his compositions. This CD is the result – and I guess there are no two opinions to the fact that it is simply great.

“Impressions of Astral Spirits/Age”, the first track here, displays feverish, exciting, yet intimate communication – actually something very beautiful. After a New Orleans blues intro the track rises like a huge wave before it breaks and then crashes against a cliff bursting into a universe of ocean spray. Yet, this is only the beginning: “Impressions of Future Retrospective”, the next track, is a monotonous, repetitive monolith starring Fred Lonberg-Holm playing a riff between Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful” and Billy Cobham’s “Crosswind”. With him and Tim Daisy in the back Josh Berman, Dave Rempis and Jason Adasiewicz, whose vibes give this piece a strange film noir quality, are having a ball until Lonberg-Holm stops all of sudden for an expressive sax/cello conversation. The most beautiful and harmonic composition is “Impression of Sweet Dragon”, a very subtle and fragile conversation between trombone, sax, clarinet and vibes, as if the instruments would caress each other before the others drop in. "Impressions Of Goodbye Tom B.," an unaccompanied tenor duet between Joe McPhee and Ken Vandermark, might be the most emotional moment for Vandermark because he could play this composition with McPhee 20 years after his father had played it to him. Nevertheless, my favorite is “Impressions of Knox” because of its irresistible sax blues riff and Lonberg-Holm’s solo which tries to destroy everything but fails because the riff is too strong.  And there is even a very short allusion to the James-Bond-theme. Who says that free jazz has to be deadly serious?

The nonet is: Joe McPhee: tenor saxophone; Jason Adasiewicz: vibraphone; Josh Berman: cornet; Jeb Bishop: trombone; Tim Daisy: drums; Kent Kessler; bass; Fred Lonberg-Holm: cello, electronics; Dave Rempis: saxophones; Ken Vandermark: clarinet, tenor saxophone.

You can buy from  Instantjazz.com.

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Round-up: October 1, 2013

By Dan Sorrells

Jennifer Allum, Ute Kanngiesser, Grundik Kasyansky, Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Eddie Prévost, Daichi Yoshikawa – Workshop Concert (Matchless, 2013) ***

Members of Eddie Prévost’s improvisation workshop recorded this concert last year at Café OTO. Long opening piece “Moving Duets” is an interesting idea, a musical tag-team with impressively seamless transitions between the various pairings. Unfortunately, the piece as a whole is uneven, as some duets are naturally more fruitful than others. The remaining pieces showcase a variety of trios, with stronger results. The trios of Allum, Prévost, and cellist Ute Kanngiesser and Allum, Kanngiesser and Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga are the highlights here, reminiscent of the fragile, fibrous sound of Allum and Prévost’s 2011 album Penumbræ. Prévost’s sparring with Daichi Yoshikawa and Grundik Kasyansky’s electronics is perhaps the most abstract in a field of extremely abstract music; oddly, its most effective moments are when someone catches a weak radio signal, suddenly juxtaposing everyone against the crackly break beats of a local dance station. There’s interesting music here for sure, but it’s in good company with some of the more inscrutable Matchless releases.


Sult – Harm (Bocian, 2013) ****

The first thing that comes to mind when listening to Harm is a sinking ship, spiraling down in the blackness of the deep, groaning and creaking as the unfathomable pressure builds and builds. The quartet of two basses, guitar, and percussion have crafted a music of extremes: a sound that’s both stretched taut and painfully compressed like our ship at the bottom of the sea. “Skade” and “Fange” feel remarkably open and spacious; “Lunge” and “Wince” incredibly claustrophobic. But extreme doesn’t mean violent. Sult is restrained and finely-controlled. There’s a sense in which the band, despite the open nature of their droning, noisy sound, is just as keyed-in as the “tightest” rhythmic ensemble. The only downside? At just a hair over 30 minutes, Harm is way too short!


Antoine Beuger & Michael Pisaro – This Place/Is Love (Erstwhile, 2013) ***

This collaboration between Wandelweiser composers Antoine Beuger and Michael Pisaro leans much more towards the Pisaro end of the equation. Its disparate thematic sections, blurry mixture of performed music and field recordings, sine waves, and the obscure arrangement of its parts are all touchstones for those familiar with Pisaro’s previous work.  I have less exposure to Beuger, but suspect his contribution would be hard to tease out either way, such is the ephemeral, delicate nature of his compositions. Like most Wandelweiser music, the “journey is the destination,” and at the close of This Place/Is Love’s 75 minutes, there’s a distinct feeling of having gone on a long and difficult quest, the details of which keep slipping quietly from memory.


Bruise – Live at the MAC (Foghorn, 2013) ****

Live at the MAC is the latest offering from Tony Bevan’s Foghorn label, a pay-what-you-want download (though “nothing” is not an option). Bruise is a well-established quintet on the British improv scene, a group that, to use a bad pun, always manages to leave a mark. The long live performance kicks off with a wash of Ashley Wales’s heady electronics and Orphy Robinson’s percussion, over which Bevan gently rafts his lyrical tenor. It all hearkens to the pioneering days of spiritual jazz; there’s a cleansing, cathartic quality that’s irresistible. Things eventually move from smoldering incense to roaring fire music, touching on all manner of improvisational practice in between. Bruise is what full, comfortable integration sounds like. They point to many different eras and approaches, without necessarily sounding indebted to any.  A generous performance, generously offered. Well worth the modest asking price(s).


Gaspar Claus - Jo Ha Kyū (Modest Launch/Important, 2013) ***½

“Jo Ha Kyū” is one of those elegant Japanese aesthetic concepts that my explanation will never do justice. What’s important is that it remains one of many temporal strands that run through Japanese culture, as much a part of modern art as of traditional society. Jo Ha Kyū is the result of Parisian cellist Gaspar Claus’s three-week stay in Japan, during which he worked with a number of notable improvisers (including Sachiko M, Keiji Haino, and Otomo Yoshihide) and traditional musicians. The resulting piece is uncommonly evocative, one of the most excitingly eerie pieces of music I’ve encountered in a long time. There’s a ghostly aura underlying the minimalist first half that almost can’t be put into words. The second half of the piece is harder to work through, extremely dissonant and punctuated with Haino’s idiosyncratic vocals. It culminates in a massive crescendo that’s suddenly sucked into the void, leaving only the disconcerting click of the needle as the finished record idly spins.  The running time of the Modest Launch version is more than doubled with the inclusion of three improvised duets (those who opt for the CD version produced by Important Records also get two different improvisations).

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John Butcher, Thomas Lehn & John Tilbury - Exta (Fataka, 2013) ****½

By Stef  

As the label explains :"In ancient Roman religious ritual, 'exta' were the organs of a sacrificed animal offered up to the gods - the lungs, heart, liver and gall bladder; here, Exta is a selection of four pieces (one in two parts) carefully extracted from a long studio session". The trio are John Butcher on saxophones, Thomas Lehn on synth and John Tilbury on piano, three magicians of free improvisation presenting their art as a trio. 

And as can be expected, the result is stunning. As so often with the minimalist approach to music, building sparse sounds around silence, the listener gets shifted between the deception of calm and the illusion of darkness. Nothing you hear is predictable, yet you also know that it will not explode either. The result is an uncanny and relentless tension that starts the album and keeps haunting the listener even after the last sounds have ebbed away. 

John Butcher's sound is as multiphonic, vibrating and resonating as usual, like Tilbury's piano can either be played with a few clear notes or by scraping the inside of it. Lehn is something else. The synth and electronics are not my favorite thing, but Lehn is a master of control, adding the right level of depth and contrast to the sax and the piano, mixing in some white noise and ear-piercing high sustained tones, or some industrial harshness to the cautious sounds of his colleagues. 

"Pulmo" (Latin for lung) comes in two parts, as you can expect from an animal's anatomy. The first part is slow and barely breathing, in contrast to the second part, which is more lively, and extremely beautiful. What the trio brings here is absolutely astonishing in terms of joint soundscaping, and again, Lehn's control and suggested colors add a layer to the music, making it indeed more complete.  

On "Cor" (Latin for heart), the piece shifts from fragile high-pitched playing gradually and slowly, to a more voluminous, dense and tense center part, with rash electronics and heavy piano chords, then silence, but no ... something's still vibrating, pulsing, throbbing far away in the distance, brought to life again by a few carefully placed single notes on the piano, with the sax adding its typical vulnerable beauty. 

"Iecur" (liver) is built around Tilbury's piano introduction, with ominous open arpeggios, with Lehn gradually adding the faintest of sounds, replacing the silence between the piano keys. And like all minimalists, their great strength is the power of restraint, the discipline to let notes resonate in emptiness before a new note is played, at a pace that remains slow and controlled. It takes seven minutes into the piece before we get to hear the sax, nothing more than a faint whisper, then few ripples are made for a while, only to end in some cluttered tones, disoriented somehow, lost in the piece, but coming in structural harmony by the three instruments. 

The album ends with "Fel" (Lating for gall bladder), a short piece, but no less intense than the rest of the album. The tones are low, dark and eery. However generous the offering to the gods may have been with these four organs, the omens do not sound too good. 

Yet a very highly recommended album for fans of Butcher, Tilbury, Lehn, AMM and other minimal improv. 


You can buy from  Instantjazz.com.

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