Jazz /
On fire
Norway's Smalltown Supersound label is just one of those imprints that you have to keep an eye on, because if not you're sure to miss out on some nugget of psyched avant-metal or North European disco that you'll be kicking yourself over neglecting in 10 years time. 'Smalltown Supersound On Fire' is a very handy and rather essential compendium of forthcoming releases on the label, including tracks from Arp, Meanderthals, Diskjokke and Tussle alongside remixes from the likes of Prins Thomas and Bj…
Berlin Symphonie MND 1968 - 72
Legendary recordings by Johansson and friends, precursor of today´s minimalistic impro. Includes 30 minutes solo by sax player Frippe Nordström. CD I recorded at Club Litfass, Berlin, 1968; CD 2, track 1 recorded at SR, Stockholm, 1970; CD 2, tracks 2-4 recorded at Club 7, Oslo, 1972.Sven-Åke Johansson, drums, voice; Norbert Eisbrenner, guitar, alto saxophone, voice; Bengt Nordstöm, tenor saxophone (CD2 track 1); Werner Götz bass (CD 1, CD2 track 1); Peter Dyck, cello (CD2 tracks 2-4).
Old Dogs (2007)
Jerry Hemingway joined and remained a member of the infamous Anthony Braxton quartet for eleven years from 1983 - 1994. This set documents their first recorded collaboration in 12 years. Using an hourglass as a guide, each CD contains one 60-minute improvisation, and each improvisation is very different in character and instrumentation. These studio recordings were made at Wesleyan University in August 2007. Released to celebrate Braxton's 65th birthday, the recordings are packaged in ca…
Woodblock Prints
Awesome new LP, just arrived, Referencing the delicate artistic printing method, this nonet recording presented by Harris Eisenstadt on drums and compositions, Michael McGinnis on clarinet, Jason Mears on alto saxophone, Sara Schoenbeck on bassoon, Mark Taylor on french horn, Brian Drye on trombone, Jay Rozen on tuba, Jonathan Goldberger on electric guitar and Garth Stevenson on acoustic bass (with smaller groups frequently breaking out) is a model of artistic restraint. At times sounding like a…
Chew Your Food
The performance on this LP was recorded live at Roulette in New York last year. I have appreciated Knuffke's playing and music before, and I will do it again here. His tone is always full and warm, and he's a master at taking tough bends easily. The music is jazz in its purest sense : improvisational joy and emotional expressivity in a compact form. There is nothing but pulse in the pieces they play, even if the rhythms are not always explicit or when there are no patterns, the three musici…
Cymbals
restocked, but very few available...LP art edition of 310 numbered copies, recorded on 1973, NEVER previously issued on vinyl, this is a jewel from saturn: try to find it in the cosmo if you can. This albums originally intended for release by Impulse! in the early 1970s, Cymbals is very a much a continuation of efforts like The Night of the Purple Moon, with an overall extended sax workouts, and built out with plenty of welcoming grooves. An highlight from a fertile period when Sun Ra and his…
Le viandier de taillevent
for almost 10 years, the québécois collective napalm jazz gets its hands dirty with its unorthodox approaches to improv.' 'mostly activ as a duo with erick d'orion and philémon they like to get different guests like for example a_dontigny, arnaud rivière, erikm or erik minkkinen. limited to 181 copies and coproduced with notype from montréal." (label info)
Hyste
A sequence of six duo improvisations on tenor saxophone & church organ recorded at St Peter’s, Whitstable in 2009.
Psalms
A sequence of six duo improvisations on tenor saxophone & church organ recorded at St Peter’s, Whitstable in 2009.
Wazifa
PAT THOMAS (piano and synthesizer), CLAYTON THOMAS (double bass), RAYMOND STRID (percussion) recorded in concert at the 2009 Perspectives Festival, Västerås, Sweden.
Creak above 33
An interesting development in recent times has been the transAtlantic and trans-generational connections being made in the improvisation community. The Emanem recording by Steve Beresford with Okkyung Lee and Peter Evans, and George Lewis' collaboration with GIO are just two recent examples that come to mind. At the forefront of this trend is the duo of Nate Wooley (trumpet & amplifier) and Paul Lytton (percussion & live electronics) bringing two of the most questioning minds in improvised music…
A week went by
Aki Takase's visit to the North East of England resulted in two new fruitful encounters which Chris Trent was on hand to document. The duo with alto saxophonist John Tchicai and the trios with John Edwards (double bass) and Tony Levin (drums) are augmented by solo pieces all taken from the Music Outside Festival of 2008."Creating an arc from disparate, spontaneously generated materials; positing authenticity that recognises the dynamic between jazz and improvised music, A WEEK WENT BY confirms A…
Whitstable solo
Eight soprano saxophone solos. The 2008 solo concert in Whitstable began as an invitation from artist Polly Read and film-maker Neil Henderson to collaborate on a joint work that included a concert in St.Peter's. These recordings are taken mostly from the concert but, as with LINES BURNT IN LIGHT, one piece was recorded before the audience arrived. These are the first recordings in what has become a series of visits to the church, which has perfect acoustics and is just around the corner from wh…
Adrift
Three live performances of collaborative electroacoustic compositions from 2007-08, recorded in London, Brisbane and Antwerp, each exploring different points of contact between precomposed structures and spontaneous invention: a duo adrift (in memory of Paul Rutherford) with pianist Sarah Nicolls, a nonet codex IX (in memory of Mauricio Kagel) with the ELISION ensemble, and a 17-piece group with Ensemble Champ d'Action realising codex VII (to Vinko Globokar).
Set
This music was inspired by Lynn Margulis’ serial endosymbiosis theory (SET), and is dedicated to her and her amazing insights into the mechanisms of biological evolution.In inviting Paul Lytton, Barry Guy, Walter Prati, Marco Vecchi, Lawrence Casserley and FURT, I was trading on the pre-existing musical structures that these musicians brought with them: the solo works of Guy, Lytton , Casserley and myself; the duos with Lytton, Guy, Prati and Casserley, the trio with Guy and Lytton, the trio wit…
Sense
Too often, critics make an automatic separation between ‘emotion’ and ‘intellect’, a framework which will get one nowhere with FURT. Instead, their music shows graphically how fused, how inseparable are the two. As Richard Barrett puts it: "The music is motivated by emotional and sensual considerations as much as by anything else. Without wishing to sound too pretentious I think it’s concerned with finding and exploring (musical) states of consciousness to which the word ‘ecstasy’ might well be …
Object 1
'Objects 1’ is the latest release of Tasos Stamou combining improvised sets and sound installation. This 35 min. piece was live-recorded at ‘6.d.o.g.s’, Athens, using a variety of handmade mechanical and electronic devices. Self-operated cymbals, prepared ventilators and circuit bent toys accompany sampled murmuring whispers that reflect a sound landscape of ritual atmosphere, enriched with a solo of bowed ‘typatune’ toy piano.
Vadelma/Hawaii
Surprisingly good free jazz from this Finnish combo. Very organic sound, there's something unique about them. "One of the hottest shows of recent memory was seeing this burning-free ecstatic force in TAMPERE back in 2008. One of those nights where you just feel that you are beyond this planet's laws of nature and in a world you did not know existed. Now the other foot has dropped, and what seemed impossible now can be held on this beautiful LP. Side Vadelma recorded January 26 in Helsinki. Side…
3 Nights In Oslo
Awesome 5 CD box set recorded over 3 nights in Oslo on February 19-21, 2009 at Victoria, Nasjonal Jazzscene. This time out the Tentet +1 includes Mats Gustaffson, Ken Vandermark, Jeb Bishop, Joe Mcphee, Johannes Bauer, Per Ake Holmlander, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Kent Kessler, Michael Zerang & Paul Nilssen-Love.
Musica Improvvisa
Musica Improvvisa is a cutting-edge project of multi-sensorial improvisation, an open dialogue among different musical experiences, narratives and aesthetics that charters the unexplored soundscape of the telluric territory of the new Italian improvised Music. Ten groups that spans from the South to the North of Italy, from the well-known to the totally obscure, whose music goes from an harsh assault to the ear to a visionary post-electronic/post everything free-form structure. The brilliant out…