Jazz /
Neuschnee
The five tracks on neuschnee form an ambitious meta-song suite, with the various lyrics and musical styles combining to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. The design is again from Berlin designer Marion Gerth, previously responsible for The Magic ID-till my breath gives out on ErstPop. The front cover juxtaposes a satellite picture of snow with the Mao Zedong poem 'Snow', which the musicians discovered in a book bought while on tour in Beijing. "After a long phase of experimental…
Otinku
The Modern Sound Quintet were formed in Stockholm by Trinidadian steel drum master Rudy Smith. On Otinku, Smith wails out on his set of 'pans' (as I believe the vernacular goes) in an improbably slick bebop mode, accompanied by a rhythm section capable of keeping it free and swinging one moment, and then within an instant locking down a groove. While pieces like the title track and 'Bye Bye Blackbird' flow effortlessly, 'Mercy, Mercy, Mercy' and 'Memphis Underground' lay down a solid bedrock of …
Duets
The rare original LP released as a hand printed/numbered edition of 1000, designed by Amy Webb."Braxton concentrated heavily on duo performance during this period, and this was one of the happiest of his associations. ...warmly recommended. *** "...these duets are not only stimulating and somewhat challenging, but also surprisingly lyrical and even elegant. The two musicians extract maximum variety from the duo format." --Option Magazine
Creative Orchestra
Recorded live at Alto Adige Jazz Festival in Bolzano, Italy in June of 2007. All compositions by Anthony Braxton: Composition No. 63, Composition No. 92 (part 1-2), Composition No. 164 (part 1-2), Composition No. 59
Monte Alto Estate
This is the collaborative masterpiece of the 3-piece unit, sim (Oshima Teruyuki on guitar and composition, Ootani Yoshio on computer, electronics, etc, and Uemura Masahiro on drums) and Otomo Yoshihide (turntables, self-made synthesizer). The noise of Otomo sharply incises the unique sound of sim, where Uemura’s controlled roaring drumming sets an main axis on Oshima’s precise rhythmical composition, Oshima’s the chord cuttings beats minimally and the electronics of Ootani give extreme voltage. …
Tunnel Dinner
Sax player Steve Mackay blow with The Stooges on the legendary Fun House session in 1970 (and rejoined them in 2003 when they played their first show in 29 years at the Coachella Festival, and he has performed with them ever since + rec. two more albums)... nearly 25 years later he got involved w/Radon Ensemble, which includes members from such disparate groups such as Temple of Bon Matin & the Arthur Doyle EAE (Paternostro/Wilcox), Nimrod (Lohman), Koonda Holaa (Kamilsky), ect... the 10 tracks …
Aqua Machine
Clear violet vinyl, photo by Padmanabha. Live improvisations rec. in Buffalo, Rochester & Syracuse on April 8/9/10, 2005. SB - baritone & tenor sax, slide bass clarinet, bells, conch shell, voicemaster, noseflute, home-made 8-hole clarinet; RP - drums, percussions, gopichand, tabla. Oblique and totally improvised free music.
Early Free-Form Waveforms
Performed by: Psychatrone (synth), Brian Turner (guitar). Recorded 1996 live to tape. One side is a synth/gt duo with WFMU's boss Brian Turner, while side B is a solo synth. Both tracks recorded in the mid-'90s. Psychedelic waveforms with a freeform sound that grows on you... subtle and mesmerizing.
Hymn For Tomasz Stanko
Last copies...180 gram orange vinyl with gold mixed in, cover by Mike Rudolph. Recorded on 11/04/04 and 3/13/05 by Mike Johnston & Dennis Gonzales. Dennis Gonzalez (trumpet, percussion); Faruq Z. Bey (tenor, alto sax, gong); Mike Carey (tenor sax, bass clarinet); Skeeter C.R. Shelton (tenor, soprano sax); Mike Gilmore (vibes, marimba, saz, tamboura); Mike Johnston (bass, percussion); Nick Ashton (drums, percussion). 3rd vinyl release on Qbico by this great ensemble. Here, as a septet with specia…
Acid Birds
Recorded by Jeremy Wilms and Torbitt Schwartz at I.T.S. studio, Brooklyn; November 14, 2007. Andrew Barker (drums, percussion, jaw-harp); Jaime Fennelly (electronics, harmonium); Charles Waters (alto sax, clarinet, bass clarinet). Pressed on yellow & black-striped vinyl.
Bubble Waves
Artwork by Muruga. Recorded in 2007 at Sage CT. Studio, Michigan. Muruga (drums, bells, shaker, Nada drum, conga, jimbay, synth); Perry Robinson (clarinet, wood whistles). This magical duo is the result of more then 30 years of playing together/friendship. Two side-long tracks, Muruga on side A is on drums/synth, while on side B on various perc. instruments. The bubble waves bring you closer to the light, while the bubble beat makes you wanna dance... the preacher meets the magician.
Live At Last
Notwithstanding a fruitful career, the great, late bass player Malachi Favors was quite a discreet musician even though no one has forgotten his role as the central mainstay of the Art Ensemble of Chicago until his death in January 2004. Apart from this, he only made one splendid solo album but no group recording as a leader was heard until this Maghostut Trio. Consequently, the present beautiful, original, intense and cohesive record is also a rare musical moment to enjoy. A few months before h…
Right Hemisphere
Sharp-edged work from Right Hemisphere -- nothing too cerebral, and instead some great improvisations from a quartet that includes Matthew Shipp on piano, Rob Brown on alto sax, Joe Morris on bass, and Whit Dickey on drums! Shipp's brooding piano really sets the tone for the record -- even when played sparingly, as it is on some tracks -- and the tunes are a mix of tentative sound explorations, and a few fiercer moments -- but even these latter ones still have a sensitive, almost poetic feel at …
No Side Effects
Roscoe Mitchell is of course one of the figureheads of free jazz, a long time member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and nowadays productive in smaller settings, duets and trios. On this double CD he is accompanied by Harrison Bankhead (bass, cello) and Vincent Davis (drums) , to bring 24 compositions varying between 2 and 14 minutes. The trio improvizes along structural patterns, and the interplay and technical skills of the three musicians, and then especially Mitchell himself, are excellent. …
Blissful
The music improvised by Drake, Abrams, Alexander, Morris, Parker and Parker is getting close. The music improvised by the second incarnation of Bindu is also a trance music: so is its rhythm of growth, the crossroad. The music can only grow, propagate waves, navigate through forms. Dance upon the laying body of cinder-covered structures. Everything is good to it, nothing dictates its behavior.
Turn
The most exciting of the label's inaugural issues is a new title from Art Ensemble of Chicago founder Roscoe Mitchell. In itself that is always a notable event, but this new group (with Mitchell's longtime rhythm section Jaribu Shahid and Tani Tabal on bass and drums along with new Art Ensemble trumpeter Corey Wilkes and the excellent young pianist Craig Taborn) stands among his greatest bands. They have all the role and bluster of Mitchell's Note Factory, but stripped down to an economic quinte…
Radiant Pools
Rob Brown has a sound of his own, one that you instantly identify, and it’s a wonder why his unique way of playing alto saxophone still hasn’t found the recognition it deserves. With “Radiant Pools”, not only does he confirm what a great musician he is, but he also shows how he can give life and soul to an orchestra… and what orchestra! Quite noteworthy is the way Rob Brown’s alto sax (hear his high notes) and flute, and Steve Swell’s trombone complement and enrich each other; respond to one ano…
We Were The Phliks
Guitarist Scott Fields points out in the liner notes to his latest record We Were The Philks: “It is my habit to set myself some rules for each project I compose. Otherwise the world is just too big for me. For my contributions to The Phliks book I made myself a rule that every tune would include traditional notation, graphical notation, and improvisation. In the Phliks pieces I would blur the distinction between notated and improvised material.” When one listens to the 70-minute work, a distinc…
Bindu
Drummer Hamid Drake has been a major voice in the generation of Chicagoans following the explosion of Mitchell and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. He’s most known for a long association with saxophonist Fred Anderson and here makes his recording debut as a bandleader. He called together for the session a quartet of New York and Chicago saxophonists (Daniel Carter, Ernest Dawkins, Sabir Mateen and Greg Ward) and added the great young flutist Nicole Mitchell. The track…
Kuntu
Flutists' albums, in jazz, do not clutter up record stores. Michel Edelin is one of the (very) few jazz musicians, French on top of that, to have chosen the flute, in all its forms, as his exclusive instrument. For ages, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Eric Dophy, Jeremy Steig, James Newton, Dave Valentin and the likes have held a central position in his personal pantheon, he who was able to digest their teachings in order to feed his own syntax: a sound of a beautiful elegance, an angular phrasing where a…