The Swedes Are Coming

By Eyal Hareuveni

Just as we entering the intensive season of Nordic jazz festivals, and even shorter Scandinavian summer season, here are some hot and breezy releases from the finest of Sweden musicians, (with some help from their Nordic neighbors).

Nacka Forum - We are The World (Moserobie, 2016) *****

Over the years the Nacka Forum quartet became a kind of Nordic supergroup. The quartet was founded in 1999 as group that covered pieces by Ornette Coleman, Art Ensemble of Chicago and Sun Ra, and now featuring reeds player Jonas Kullhammar, known as a leader of his own quartet and as member of Mats Gustafsson Fire! Orchestra, trumpeter Goran Kajfeš, leader of his own Subtropic Arkestra and member of sax player Martin Küchen Angels, bass player Johan Berthling who plays in the Fire! Trio, Fire! Orchestra, Tape, Sten Sandell trio, Angels and Danish drummer (who replaced original drummer Kjell Nordeson in 2012), known from his collaborative work with Sam Rivers and Yusef Lateef.  

On their fifth album Nacka Forum sounds much larger than a quartet. Maybe because besides Berthling, all play several instruments - Kullhammar on soprano, tenor, bass and slide saxes as wekk as the double bell braithphone sax, clarinet and flute, Kajfeš, plays the slide trumpet, cornet and EVI, and Osgood plays the piano and octopad. The quartet plays wise and energetic jazz, well-versed in the legacy of fiery free jazz of the sixties, but declares loud and clear that Nacka Forum has its own original, fresh sound.

The cover of South African bass player Johnny dyani “Magwaza” is very emotional and follows faithfully the original song-line theme. The African vein continues on Kullhammar call-and-answer, ironic “Do the Nacka forum”, where he can demonstrate his playing on the braithphone sax and on Osgood soulful ballad “#5”.  His tribute to the recently departed drummer Jerome Cooper, “Thinking about J.C,” enables the quartet to explode, dance on a tough, driving groove and fly with with spacey keyboards sounds. Berthling festive “Chogolisa” concludes this celebration.  

Don’t miss the tons of fun and excitement of this great album.

Parti & Minut - Dålig Sikt Och Regn (El Dingo Records, 2015) ****

Four years has passed since the debut release of the trio Parti & Minut, Från klart till halvklart , (From Sunny to Semi-cloudy), until the trio reconvened to record its sequel, Dålig sikt och regn, (Poor Visibility and Rain). This Stockholm-based trio features trumpeter John Norin, who plays with the ska/reggae band Club Killers and accompanies popular singers Amanda Jensen and Miss Li, tuba player Per-Åke Holmlander, known from his collaborations with Peter Brötzmann, Barry Guy, Mats Gustafsson and Ken Vandermark, and drummer Christopher Cantillo, who plays vibes' player Mattias Ståhl's group and other modern jazz outfits.

The trio's debut album offered a unique mix of free jazz, children music, and general mischief and its follow-up simply refines the formula. Holmlander shines in such an intimate, playful trio that enables him enough space to deliver his clever, eccentric ideas, always spiced with healthy doses of humor. Cantillo adds a hyperactive touch, pushes and drives the pieces into many side alleys with his stream of inventive ideas while Norin tries as best as he can to keep it all as one functioning unit.

The covers highlight the trio open yet emphatic interplay. Sam Rivers' “Dazzle” is charged with fierce energy and Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre “African Walk” dances with a hard-swinging pulse. Sonny Rollins' “John S” shines with abrupt, acrobatic changes, balanced with a reserved  lyrical tone and Arthur Blythe's “For Fats/Mamie Lee” is played is if the trio was shot into the stratosphere in supersonic speed.

Filip Augustson - Minsta Gemensamma Nämnaren (Found You Recordings, 2016) ***½

Double bass player Filip Augustson began to write the material for Minsta Gemensamma Nämnaren, the sophomore album of his trio, featuring violinist Eva Lindal and drummer Christopher Cantillo, immediately after the trio's debut album Viva Black was released last year. Auguston sees Lindal and Cantillo as his real soul-mates, despite their different personas and looks. Auguston thinks of himself as the nerd who looks like a recently graduated pastor, Cantillo as the epitome of Stockholm hispster and Lindal as a representative of the Swedish women who carry the arts on their shoulder. The cover that blends their faces into one unity and the title - The Lowest Common Denominator - solved this issue.

Auguston composed eight pieces, all relate to thoughts and events of his life, and all emphasize the genre-blind, versatile and resourceful language of the trio, a language that flows naturally and feels at home with modern jazz, contemporary music or folk music. The lyrical “Ögat” (The Eye) has its roots in folk music but transforms into a playful, contemporary piece. The timbral investigations of “Brommaplan Mitt På Dan” (Brommaplan in the middle of the day) reflect the seminal influence of the work of Charles Ives on Auguston. The East-European, dance-like “Den Gamla Världen” stresses the trio highly rhythmic interplay. The peaceful, beautiful  “Turtle Dance” actually imagines such a slow dance somewhere in the shiny Pacific and only “Vinterid” (Wintertime) offers a touch of typical dark Nordic melancholy.

Mathias Landæus - From The Piano (Moserobie, 2016) ****

Pianist Mathias Landæus set two simple rules for his solo album. First, all sound must be derived from his 1919 Steinway grand piano (model O), given to him by his hip grandmother. Second, anything goes as far as processing, shattering, or manipulating the sounds in any way. Landæus, known as a leader of his own trio and from his collaborations with sax player Martin Küchen, thought about this project for a few years ago and the recognition that he has to do it, and do it alone, struck him stronger and stronger. Once he rented a studio, “a creative flow took over and new worlds opened up,” letting his curiosity and instinct lead him.

Landæus turns the piano into a huge playground, where he invents, explores, and sculpts new sounds and beats, “Just Like Our Children”, as the opening, playful piece suggests. The piano may sound lie a kind of instrument that blends minimalist, repetitive percussive sounds with hypnotic, techno beat as on “Yellow Cake” and “The Male Isolation Pattern”; it may color a touching, abstract song as on “Signe 4ever”; struggle with conflicting urges on “Pedagogen” until it settles on infectious beat that brings to mind Norwegian Pianist Bugge Wesseltoft work with New conception of Jazz, or suggest an atmospheric, prog drone on “Angels on Our Car”. Landæus adds that he was guided by his need to deal with existential questions. “It takes a lot, being human. If you can’t escape it you have to make something out of it”. Something that sound fascinating.

Andreas Backer & Raymond Strid - Voice & Percussion (Creative Sources, 2015) ****

Norwegian vocal artist Andreas Backer and Swedish master drummer Raymond Strid began playing together in 2009, as a duo and in other ad-hoc constellations, but recorded their debut album only in 2014. Strid is one of the leading Nordic free improvisers and has worked with Barry Guy, Ken Vandermark, Marilyn Crispell, and Mats Gustafsson. Backer released before an album with the Swedish-Norwegian quartet Hot Four, Eye of the Moose, and a solo album, Voice Improvisations (both on Creative Sources, 2014 and 2015).

Backer and Strid have developed a unique and highly personal language that fit their concise free improvisations. Both know how to sketch intriguing stories, full of detail and playful invention that stress their constant need to explore sounds, dynamics and textures. Their interplay is intuitive and flows organically. Backer sings-speaks in wordless, invented languages - as “Text is Overrated”, the title of one the pieces, totally possessed in his intriguing stories, even the most abstract ones as “A-E-Å-O”. Strid ornaments the stories with clever percussive sounds, emphasizing the dramatic elements and colors Backer's voice with an impressive, rich spectrum of sounds. Most of the time both agree on the course of the stories, but even when they argue, as on “Bang Bang!”, they manage to charge it with a coherent dramatic narrative.

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William Hooker - Light (The Early Years) (NoBusiness, 2016) ****½

By Martin Schray

In New York, the summer of 1975 was extraordinarily hot and wet. Financially, there was a deficit of around $3 billion and the city faced bankruptcy. Mayor Abraham Beame asked President Ford for help to balance the books, which was refused. He then laid off more than 5,000 policemen, 3,000 garbage men and hundreds of firefighters. As a result, the remaining public workers went on strike, causing a greater stench than usual. In the South Bronx alone there were 5,500 cases of arson in 17 months. But the drug economy was booming: heroin was cheap and there was no shortage of high-quality weed. There was a Do-It-Yourself spirit in the air, the punk scene was born around the legendary CBGBs, and it was the heyday of the loft scene. That was the state of New York when William Hooker played on the dates in 1975 and 1976 which were recorded and assembled for his first album, a double LP … Is Eternal Life, on the first of this 4-CD set.

Hooker was raised in Hartford, Connecticut and during the late Sixties to early Seventies was in California with his wife and son. He jammed with amateur musicians, working on his chops, but his sense of dynamics and form was too elaborate for the people he played with, so he returned to Hartford. Things were no better there. He turned any tune he was given into free jazz, consequently got few jobs, and the Hookers had to leave Connecticut again. This time they went to New York where he tried to break into the loft scene, hoping William’s musical ideas would meet more sympathetic minds, but there were still problems. Sam Rivers, the man behind the legendary RivBea studio, didn’t want him because “a drummer was obliged to put in his times as a sidemen before headlining as a leader“, as Stanley Thomas puts it in the excellent liner notes. However, Hooker wanted to be a leader.

Luckily, he found other spaces to play – public libraries, Columbia University or the famous Kitchen. Although a maverick, there were young firebrands who wanted to play with him, like David Murray and David S. Ware. On “Soy:material/seven“ Hooker plays in a trio with Murray on tenor and Mark Miller on amplified bass. Murray, who was 20 years old and just arrived in New York, had been turning heads at Studio Rivbea and elsewhere. On this track, his debut on record, you can hear his huge tone, already distinctive - brutish yet melodic, focused, and damp with emotion. He was capable of ecstatic free blowing, sizzling with extended techniques. But he could also blow out beautiful Ben Webster-style phrases amongst his gospel blasts and honks. When his brutal sound collides with Hooker’s thunderous playing, it’s clear that two young masters have met. This is the only track with bass - Hooker’s thick style, with its emphasis on tom toms and snare salvos, tends to make the bass superfluous. Possibly why “Passages (anthill)“ is even better: Hooker’s duet with David S. Ware, another rising tenor player, also with one of his first appearances on record. Ware had developed a rich and scalding style, deeply rooted in tradition. His ferocious and spiritual playing challenges Hooker, who responds with roiling hellfire. The result is a track on the verge of madness, in several parts sounding as if the tension was uncontrollable.

In the opening and closing solo performances on the original album it’s apparent that Hooker has found his voice: ultra-fast rolls collide with hefty splashes on cymbals, hollering, energetic outbursts, and low-tuned skins. At times it sounds as if he’s playing corrugated metal sheets, like being sandblasted by a percussion orchestra. Hooker provides space and possibilities for everyone he plays with however, such as Les Goodson and Hasaan Dawkins (saxes, flutes and percussion) on the other recordings from the album, which open CD 2. “Pieces I & II“ is impressive, a wild take-no-prisoners battle between the three, exhausting and relentless. Unfortunately, the sound is poor, with overly reverberant drums which are too forward.

The remainder of CD 2 consists of Hooker’s sophomore album Brighter Lights from 1982 plus one previously unreleased track. In two duos Hooker is joined by Alan Braufman on alto and flute and his longtime colleague, pianist Mark Hennen. Especially on “Patterns I, II & III“ his progress is audible: Hooker uses brushes and swings, such as when Braufman plays flute in the first part. The piece has a subtle, hypnotic energy, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.  In “3&6/Right“, the duo with Mark Hennen, Cecil-Taylor-infused supersonic runs, clusters and rough riffs on piano meet the “old“ muscular Hooker - pure energy playing. The pity is that the piece fades out abruptly.

The previously unreleased recording which closes CD 2 is “Present Happiness“, a trio with Jemeel Moondoc on alto, Hasaan Dawkins on tenor, and an uncredited trumpeter. Compared to the other tracks on the first two CDs, there is obviously notated material. It is based on a four-note saxophone riff which holds the piece together. Hooker’s dynamic rolls and yells help project the solos, especially the trumpet. Classic free jazz at a very high level.

CDs 3 and 4 present previously unreleased material from 1988 and 1989. The first disc is a trio with trumpeter Roy Campbell and tenor saxophonist Booker T. Williams, the second another trio with Lewis Barnes on trumpet and Richard Keene on soprano, alto, tenor and flute. The music easily matches the older material, especially the hour-long performance with Campbell and Williams. Hooker steers the music with his drums operating on the same plane as trumpet and reeds. Hooker’s established himself in the tradition of Art Blakey and Max Roach. The duet parts are exceptional: Campbell’s light trumpet, sometimes bathed in classic blues, buzzes like an insect around Hooker’s African grooves, Williams’ sax tries to match Hooker’s high-octane drumming. Trumpet and sax throw in unison parts, boosted by the extensive use of cymbals. In the last part, there’s even a bebop riff, but Hooker doesn’t want go there and puts a stop to it.

The final disc contains another previously unreleased live session with further sympathetic playing. Barnes’ trumpet and Keene’s saxophones share an empathic timbre which is echoed by Hooker's explosions on “Contrast (With A Feeling)“. Rounding up the disc and bringing the collection full circle, "Continuity of Unfoldment" is another solo track, which also includes some great grooves. There’s s a spoken part by Hooker, foreshadowing the direction in which his interests would move. After these recordings Hooker often worked with musicians from other genres, which guaranteed him more attention outside the free jazz community. In the 1990s he collaborated with rock and avant-garde players such as Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, DJ Spooky and Elliott Sharp and he also included poetry and dance in his music.

Today, the Lithuanian NoBusiness label has become something of a second home for Hooker. Three albums since 2010: the double LP Earth’s Orbit with Darius Jones, Crossing Points, an archival recording of a 1992 duo with the late saxophonist Thomas Chapin; and Live At Vilnius Jazz Festival with saxophonist Liudas Mockūnas. Light: The Early Years 1975 - 1989 isn’t just a tribute to Hooker’s early work, but also puts him on a level with saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc and bassist William Parker, whose rare and unreleased recordings were also released by NoBusiness in box sets, with first-rate booklets.

You can listen to some snippets here http://nobusinessrecords.com/NBCD82-85.php, and it is also available through the Downtown Music Gallery.

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Fail Better! - OWT (No Business, 2016) ****

By Lee Rice Epstein

In their debut liner notes, Fail Better! described themselves as “a collaborative group born out of pre-existing projects that brought together part of the members of this quintet (The Nap, Frame Trio and Guimarães/Pais duo).” Because the musicians seem busy with so many different projects, I wasn’t sure if we’d hear from them again for another 3-5 years. So I was both surprised and delighted to see a new album up for grabs on the review list, and digitally jumped at the chance to review. The Portuguese scene has, for years now, cranked out exceptional experimental, genreless music. Fail Better! falls somewhere in the category of improvised jazz rock, but the group doesn’t create fusion or crossover music. Instead, Fail Better! moves in waves of sound, and the whole album effortlessly floats along, as each player dips in and out of the stream (to keep with the watery metaphors).

The group is a superb assembly of improvising musicians: Luís Vicente (trumpet), João Guimarães (alto saxophone), Marcelo dos Reis (electric guitar), José Miguel Pereira (double bass), and João Pais Filipe (drums). As with their debut album, Zero Sum, OWT was recorded live in Coimbra, this time in 2014.

If anything, Fail Better! has found a way to up the ante on their collaboration. I thought Zero Sum had a heavy, dark beauty to it. On OWT, they’ve brightened the sound a bit by adding a lot of space. For example, “Sidereal” has dos Reis and Filipe layering pulsing drones beneath Vicente and Guimarães’s more insistent improvisations, creating a tension between the rhythm section’s trance-like groove and the jazzier trumpet and sax lines. “In Between” goes in a slightly more introspective direction, with Vincente on muted trumpet. “Circular Measure,” which features Filipe’s trademark gongs, is a possible standout, as dos Reis, Vicente, and Guimarães play jagged, contrasting lines like sine waves over Pereira and Filipe’s subtle funk. As a single example of what makes the group exceptional, the clashing improvisation of “Circular Measure” highlights the strong connections between all the players; on multiple listens you can concentrate on hearing the shape of the whole or simply focus on any one player.

OWT closes with the ten-minute “Stellar,” a wonderfully ethereal conclusion. Again, there’s that feeling of space (in a non-celestial sense) with Filipe’s percussive playing intertwining beautifully with both Pereira’s arco work and dos Reis’s clanging electric guitar. Guimarães plays so comfortably in this space, I really could listen to him all day (do check out his octet album Zero for a more composed but similar take on this sound). And Vicente’s playing is just incredible, as always. One final note, the cover, by NoBusiness house designer Oskaras Anosovas, is gorgeous and appropriately celestial.

Clip of the performance:

The album’s available on LP direct from NoBusiness and via Bandcamp in an LP/digital bundle.

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Okkyung Lee / Bill Orcutt- Live at Cafe Oto (Otoruko, 2016) ****½

By David Menestres

Okkyung Lee and Bill Orcutt are two of the most unique musicians performing today. Lee is perhaps the most dynamic and virtuosic cellist working in improvised music. Orcutt was half of the pioneering band Harry Pussy, who took a long break before returning to live performance sounding like a blues guitarist from an alien civilization. The combined list of their past collaborations reads like a who’s who guide to modern improvisational and weirdo music. This new album, as the title suggests, was recorded at the near legendary London club Cafe Oto in November of last year.

The album starts slowly, moving along like a tumbleweed that catches fire bringing hell’s wrath to those standing before it. Arco squeals set against hard picked stings dip into sustained tones and slowly evolving short clusters prior to the duo launching into the cold darkness of outer space. Moments are so percussive it is easy to forget you are listening to two string players.

The B-side establishes an immediate groove, briefly suggesting a structured song whose architecture is rapidly abandoned, or perhaps more accurately, demolished. The rest of the side is built upon the ruins of the opening, reminding me of the graffiti covered concrete submarine watch towers that dotted the North Carolina coast of my childhood. The music is completely subversive as the duo destroys their work in an unending creative search. A brief moment of chatter between Orcutt and Lee leads to a distorted, squalling final assault upon the listener’s ears.

An excellent example of the power and promise of improvised music.



The duo has some European tour date's coming up:

• 24/9  -Copenhagen @ Jazzhouse
• 25/9 - Rotterdam @ Koffie & Ambacht
• 26/9 - Brussels @ Les Ateliers Claus
• 27/9 - Paris @ Instants Chavires
• 28/9 - London @ Cafe Oto
• 29/9 - Glasgow @ Glad Cafe

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Aishi Oyauchi -Hikureteyomowakuraku (Armageddon Nova, 2016) ****

By Nicola Negri


Aishi Oyauchi – curved soprano saxophone

In 2013, Deathrash Armageddon, a Japanese label usually devoted to black metal, created the sublabel Armageddon Nova expressly to release the LP Now’s The Time? by saxophonist Aishi Oyauchi and bassist Deku. It was the first studio recording by these musicians, even if they were already in their 60s and with a long experience in free jazz and improvisation, and it presented a beautifully constructed, pensive exploration of minimal improvisational strategies and subtle dynamics. In the following years Oyauchi continued recording for the label, releasing the solo double CD Wrong Exit in 2015, and this Hikureteyomowakuraku, again a solitary endeavor, in 2016.

The title track that opens the album is a disorienting rendition of the traditional hymn “Abide With Me” – an hesitant performance slowly assembling the melody, distilled to its bare essentials with aching intensity. The remainder of the record is a suite of eight tracks that provides a better picture of Oyauchi’s peculiar style, with his passion for folk-like melodies, obsessive repetitions and abrupt diversions. There’s a certain abandon to the proceedings that highlights the spontaneity of the improvisation, and at the same time there’s a clear structural logic at work, with most of the pieces following analogous patterns, each track given a precise identity by focusing on a particular aspect of the performance. “Kaze I” begins with a simple melodic idea that Oyauchi develops through incremental additions and continuous adjustments, using dynamics to give shape and substance to the improvisation; “Kaze IV” is a showcase for the saxophonist’s serpentine phrasing and sharp upper register articulations while “Kaze VII” is at first focused on breathy, relaxed saxophone lines eventually giving space to more complex constructions, constantly growing in intensity and leading to an abrupt ending.

Throughout the album Oyauchi employs small metallic objects or the saxophone keys to create little percussive vignettes, further shaping the tunes with a prominent use of silence and asymmetrical structures. The common thread that connects all together is the thorough exploration of the saxophone’s potential, approached with simplicity and enthusiasm, and even if the instrumental technique is quite refined, there’s an always noticeable sense of discovery and surprise that gives the record a mysterious, sometimes perplexing but ultimately fascinating character.


Listen to “Kaze I”:

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Mark Solborg & Herb Robertson: Tuesday Prayers (ILK, 2016) ****

By Joe

This seems to have been a year of duos, or is it that I've been listening to many recently? It is indeed one way of presenting music in a format where musicians cannot hide behind each other, always exposed, forcing them into a performance situation that helps concentrate the mind musically. This new record from Solborg and Robertson is one such piece, placing the two musicians in a church in down-town Copenhagen, as the records title says, on a Tuesday night. This is a record where you really feel the two musicians in total synchronicity, any sound or disturbance from outside would have felt like an intrusion. The music the duo produces in this way is highly focused and is indeed like a meditation that could, as the title says, be likened to prayers.

Solborg and Robertson don't need much introduction added to that they've also already worked together previously. One fine collaboration, reviewed here a few years back, featured Herb Robertson with Evan Parker (The Trees), highlighted Solborg's work with a larger ensemble which produced high quality music that was dense and probing. Here the duo achieve quite the opposite, full of space, this music takes advantage of the peaceful acoustic of the church, creating pure improvised music which relies on the quickness of thought and musicality of each player.

This isn't a ground breaking record, or at least there's nothing outrageously new in their playing styles. Robertson and Solborg look for ways to produce music which is melodic, and at times jagged, which often hangs motionless in the air. Solborg's (Frisellian) sustaining chords, textures, or simple melodic lines, help produce the meditative quality mentioned earlier. His playing is gentle and searching, using simple repeated ideas as if looking for a way out of a musical maze. His style is, in my opinion, very much anchored in blues, using dissonance in a melodic way which helps keep the music listenable. His partner, Robertson, brings in subtle ideas built up with an almost childlike simplicity, coaxing Solborg out into the open where the two find common ground. The duo dance around each other, magically leaving just the right amount of space where needed to produce some very magical and delicate musical moments.      

As for the way the material is presented, the record has an interesting make up of six pieces/tracks, and two sections. Section #1 is titled: PREPARATIONS, made up of two short pieces, followed by section #2, CONCERT with four individual tracks. I imagine that the first two pieces are a sort of rehearsal/sound-check(?), but this doesn't make any real difference to the playing/presentation as the record works just fine as a one-sitting listening session and is best taken that way. 

If you'd like to find out more, or interested to pick up a copy, head over to ILK's site. Highly Recommended!
 

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Thurston Moore & Frank Rosaly – Marshmallow Moon Decorum (Corbett vs Dempsey, 2016) ****

By Tom Burris

This slowly building inferno was the first collaboration between guitarist Moore and drummer Rosaly way back in 2012 in Chicago.  Fortunately, the whole thing was captured on a pristine multi-tracked recording and has finally been released by Corbett vs. Dempsey.  Moore has improvised over the past few decades with many stellar and forward thinking percussionists, including William Winnant, William Hooker and Tom Surgal, but Frank Rosaly may be the most formidable of the bunch, given that a prominent characteristic of his style is pummeling every piece of the drum kit simultaneously. 

After a tentative beginning, the conversation heats up around the 6:30 mark to the tune of Moore's squelch bombs challenging Rosaly's tribal pounding.  Sharp twists and turns characterize the first half of the 32-minute piece, often with Moore's guitar so overloaded that it sounds like Merzbow has joined them for a trio.  When he goes for the sticks-in-strings schtick it takes me back to the olden days when post-rock seemed an exciting possibility.  No one yet knew it would turn into two opposite poles of pop-songs-with-new-textures (best exemplified by Sonic Youth's major label output during the 90s) and new-rock-textures-pushing-toward-the-avant-garde-establishment (represented by much of Sonic Youth's SYR label's releases).

But wait a minute.  This whole “improv rock” thing has become its own genre by now, hasn't it?  Body/Head, Magik Markers, Black Spirituals, NNCK, the Dead C's later work...   This rock-based improvisation for its own self-indulgent sake represents a purity that has somehow slowly evolved into an established genre.  The music is a hit-or-miss proposition of course, but that's the case with improvised music no matter what the original structure happened to be before the musicians decided to break out.  And the break-out here really happens halfway through the piece, when Moore and Rosaly burst into flames and ride the blaze out to its charred conclusion, proving there is perhaps nothing more cleansing than a fire. 

So when does the mainstream recognition come?  Even the four-year span between performance and the belated release of this particular disc seems premature – at least in the U.S. - as current mainstream America has proven reluctant to feel the burn.

Also -

Fans of Rosaly and/or Moore will want the excellently recorded disc, but for the curious - an audience video of the entire set is available to view here:

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Three by Loren Connors

Loren Connors - The Red Painting (Family Vineyards, 2016) ***½
Tom Carter & Loren Connors - untitled (Family Vineyards, 2016) ****
Loren Connors & Clint Heidorn - Light (Family Vineyards, 2016) ****

By Paul Acquaro

The Red Painting

In the cover story from The Wire (#389, July 2016), Kurt Gottschalk described guitarist, pianist, and painter, Loren Connors as "a man who often comes across as a strange mixture of slow-motion and impatience." I cannot think of a better way to introduce The Red Painting. This single-sided seven-inch, contains five minutes of carefully considered, piano and guitar. Slow and unfolding, but at the same time, radiating a certain energy. Recorded in 2009 but only recently released, this is Connors' debut piano recording, and though it's a 'new' instrument in his discography, the music retains the spacious minimalism and abstracted melodicism of his recent guitar oriented recordings. Between the slowly changing arpeggios, there is a silence almost as loud as the piano keys themselves. The ambiance of the creaking of the piano bench is almost as important as the music. One gets the sense that everything matters, it is an economy of notes, and not one is to be missed.

untitled

The guitar duo collaboration between Connors and Tom Carter (from the Charalambides) - untitled - is sometimes unnerving and ever fascinating in its slow unfolding of sound. It's a soundtrack to a scorched earth landscape, decades after it has been scorched. We feel of the wind blowing across cracked deserted streets, and dark rain drops bouncing off broken glass windows. It's a gorgeous lugubrious swirl of sound. The two tracks are about 15 minutes each and capture the sound of the two electric guitars played with controlled abandon and minimalist sensibilities. Feedback and overtones are as important to the atmosphere as the legato notes and fragments of sound. A dark and slowly unfolding album where tension and intensity play off patience and reserve.


Compared to untitled, Light from Connors (guitar) and Clint Heidorn (guitar) is indeed just what it title says. Though spacious and open like the former, it is also a brighter album, where the gentle refraction of melody reflects a melancholic hope. The album limited in quantity - 300 12" clear vinyl along with prints of Connors artwork.

Overall, a really nice set of new and thoughtfully packaged music from Connors and Family Vineyards.

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Susan Alcorn - Evening Tales (Mystra Records, 2016) ****

By Paul Acquaro

When we last heard from pedal steel master Susan Alcorn, she had just released the stunning recasting of Astor Piazzolla's tango compositions for solo pedal steel guitar. It was an ambitious and exquisite record. On Evening Tales, a new collection of solo pieces, we are drawn even deeper into her musical universe - it's definitely more expansive than just a musical world - as Alcorn delivers a set of tracks that explores the entire range of what the pedal steel can do.

It has been noted before that it is wonderful to hear an instrument so iconic to country and western music recast in a jazz setting, and even more so to be deconstructed into the avant-garde. Alcorn is wizard-like in her attention to the instrument, in concert she moves effortlessly above and below the table of strings. There is no brute force used here, and I do not detect other effects, the sound is one of pure discovery and mastery, where one moment we're spiraling through the cosmos ('Sapphire') and the other listening to some rather baroque ('Milonga En Re').

Ethereal, haunting, and highly recommended!

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Mary Halvorson & Noël Akchoté (s/r, 2016) ****

By Paul Acquaro

Just about every week it seems that there is an alert from Bandcamp that a new release from French guitarist Noël Akchoté is available for download. The alert from the other week though was particularly intriguing: Akchoté (who has released albums with guitarists Derek Bailey, Fred Frith and Marc Ribot, among many others) had recently teamed up with NYC's Mary Halvorson for a duo date. Halvorson and Akchoté met after she covered on his composition’s on her solo album from last year, Meltframe.

The music is a collection of Akchoté originals, several co-credited songs, and some choice covers, like the rather abstracted version of “All the Things You Are” (but one that still contains enough DNA to be identifiable) and a neat reading of Ornette Coleman's Prime Time's tune 'Him and Her.' What they do together is a rather captivating merging of approaches. The opener 'Can I V' features a rapid exchange of ideas, abstract melodies lines intersecting and diverging with a certain relentlessness.  Akchoté, who has entire albums exploring the music of musicians like John Abercrombie and Bill Frisell, leads the duo through an edgy version of Frisell's 'Strange Meeting', his brittle single note lines propped up by Halvorson's looping arpeggios.

Both bring concentrated intensity to the music, and their electric guitars are recorded sparingly, dry, and leaving little room for slacking off. The download interestingly comes with a PDF booklet containing the sheet music to all of the tunes.

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