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Fou has struck again. Jean-Marc Foussat has volunteered so much of his time to collect all this free improvised music in its most explosive, confusing and emotionally charged moments that his litany becomes infinite! Summary of A Century (in Memoriam Annick et Fred). The musicians: the career of Antwerp pianist Fred Van Hove is so special (and ultimately little known to cognoscenti) that it seems to me to be a symbol of openness, a quality intrinsic to this “kind of musical practice. In the mid-…
"Most Americans discover European improvised music using a map dominated by Amsterdam, Berlin, and London, which dwarfs and shoves the rest of the continent to the margins. At some point, however, even they realize the land lies differently. Yet, extensive exploration is required to correct the proportions, label the tributaries, and overlay the trade routes. In this endeavor, recordings become the coordinates that begin to flesh out the map's heretofore blank spaces.
Madly You is valuable in th…
2023 stock** "Such is the strength and conviction with which the Sudo Quartet performs that thoughts immediately turn to how they developed such a cohesive group sound. But when uniting four virtuoso stylists from the European free improvisation scene, it's a near certainty that their paths have crossed many times during their careers. Whatever the history, it becomes straight away apparent from the first few notes that there are powerful forces at work as Léandre's richly resonant bowing meshes…
*2023 stock* "Swedish multi-reed artist Mats Gustafsson was just beginning to come into his own at the time of this recording. The oddly titled Mouth Eating Trees and Related Activities catches him at the cusp when his prodigious technical abilities were starting to be subsumed into an impressive musical presence. It doesn't hurt that his companions for this freely improvised session are stalwarts like Barry Guy and Paul Lovens, who provide accompaniment that's creatively telepathic. While Gusta…
"There is a landscape of sonic ideas, of banging, of entity, of new forms of stimulating the body and of prehension moved by our human, urban, maybe even cubist surroundings, or by the big wild country where, we say, music does what it wants. Unless, we misread and “music knows what it wants.” Both! With one stroke, knowing and doing unanimously converge into one. A point of intersection - there are so many - between the desiredl iberties and sublime agitation provoked by the embrasure of paths …
"Percussionist Paul Lovens turns in some exemplary work on Carpathes, joined by Michel Pilz (bcl) and Peter Kowald (b). Actually it is mostly Pilz' date as he appears throughout the record either in solo, trio or duo with Kowald. But it is Lovens who most impresses me here as he hammers, rings, jingles the percussion, managing to both give rhythmic freedom and abstraction while implying a more traditional rhythm and he sustains himself very well. Actually the rhythm is constantly outstanding in …
Fundacja Sluchaj! presents a new recording by Gerard Lebik (tenor sax), John Edwards (doubke bass) and Paul Lovens (Drums), performed live on 23 of April 2015 at Lublin Jazz Festival
"They are sameïliar which means each one resembles the one before as well as the consecutive one as if they were the same. Perhaps they were all the same in a utopian past, or there was even only one of them – which must have been, then, identical. The sameïliarity they show holds that the same is always different. …
** 2021 Stock ** Those artists that have the courage to bare themselves are often warned to "brace up." Since few things in improvised music are considered as dangerous as allowing space to others. Someone might easily grab all of that space and position themselves as ringleader, in the contest that a concert sometimes is. The Seppe Gebruers, Hugo Antunes and Paul Lovens trio are definitely not at each other's throats, though. The title of their 2018 album recorded 2016, The Room: Time & Space, …
Temporary Super Offer! To be free. What does that actually mean? Not in a social or even political sense. But as a human being? As a musician? When we speak of free improvised music, freedom is the mother of all things. And that in a literal- al sense. You free yourself from yourself. As human beings, we always act with the sum of what we have collected, stored and reflected in all the years before. An improviser does not have to apply his knowledge and skills intellectually, but instinctively. …
Temporary Super Offer! It is surely significant that both Lovens and Stoffner use all four limbs to control their instrument. Lower limbs used principally to play bass drum and hi-hat in the case of Lovens, volume control and effects pedal for Stoffner. Right and left limbs, right and left brain hemispheres It is not surprising that there is plenty going on in their music. “Whatever happened to the Art of the Individual?!” Han Bennink once asked rhetorically to a crowded backstage. Well here i…
**CD edition** Alexander von Schlippenbach: piano; Aki Takase: piano; DJ Illvibe: turntables; Paul Lovens: drums. Recorded by Rainer Robben at AudioCue, Berlin. Lovens joins the Lok 03 trio of Schlippenbach, Takase, and DJ Illvibe for the follow-up to their 2005 debut. Mastered by Beat Halberschmidt. Artwork by Philip Hillers. Liner notes by Yoko Tawada.
Excellent free improvisation from the quartet of Els Vandeweyer (vibraphone), Fred Van Hove (piano / accordion), Paul Lovens (percussion), Martin Blume (percussion) recording at Kunstencentrum BELGIE & Cultuurplatform Motives for Jazz.