Improv
Album Reviews : Off World – ‘3’ : Illuminating soundscapes and sonic free flow from the illustrious Canadian collective.
Sandro Perri seems like one of those quietly busy people. A touch stone within the Canadian contemporary scene, the guitarist, producer and pioneer of ‘infinite song-writing’ has over the last decade gifted us three solo albums that should be on any muso’s shelves. That trio of releases on Constellation, ‘Impossible Spaces’, ‘Another Life’ and ‘Soft …
Track/Video : Johannesburg jazz collective iPhupho L’ka Biko offer up ‘Braam Streets’ ahead of their significant debut EP ‘Azania’
More proof then, if you really need it, of the power and fortitude within new gen South African jazz. Those diligent sound searchers at We Are Busy Bodies announce ‘Azania’, the upcoming vinyl debut by iPhupho L’ka Biko, on the racks and shipping from 15th December. Formed by bassist/composer Nhlanhla Ngqaqu in 2015 from musical …
Album Review: Matana Roberts – Coin Coin Chapter Five: In The Garden : a powerful and poetic jazz saga.
Jazz composer, saxophonist and visual-artist Matana Roberts powerful and profound Coin Coin album series has reached its fifth chapter with the release of harrowingly resonant ‘In the Garden’ via Montreal’s Constellation Records. The album continues Roberts’ resolute commitment to a twelve-part song cycle which began in 2011 with ‘Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de couleur …
Album Review: Brin & Dustin Wong – Texture II : An intense connection of micro-beats and shifting loops with a free jazz spirit.
Imagining the outcome of this collaboration is in many ways a bit of a stretch. First there is guitarist Dustin Wong, in the past a key member of the under-valued Ponytail, who rode the first math-rock wave along with Battles, and more recently an explorer of interwoven guitar pieces, often long form, for Thrill Jockey. …
Track/Video : Saxophonist, composer and jazz chronicler Matana Roberts announces new album ‘In The Garden’, Chapter Five in the visionary Coin Coin series.
Many new releases are anticipated but few have the added importance of Matana Roberts fifth instalment in their Coin Coin series ‘In The Garden’, due via Constellation on 29th September. The jazz composer, saxophonist and multi-disciplinary artist’s significant song cycle began in 2011 with ‘Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres’. This staggeringly visceral …
Album Review: Seljuk Rustum – Cardboard Castles : melodic, mischevious and magical, fresh soundscapes and songs from Southern India.
Womad used to run the strapline ‘bringing you the best music you’ve never heard’. Well the sonic explorers at Hive Mind Records are working on their own version of the same mission. Theirs is an internationalist mindset, navigating the rich expanse of contemporary global music and sharing the work of forward thinkers with a similar …
See: Ted Byrnes takes us back to the primeval beat with the raw percussive expression of ‘Preparation’
HAVING in the past laid down the rhythmic anchor for artists as diverse as Zola Jesus and LA’s experimental hiphop collective clipping, among an absolute host of others, sticksman in demand Ted Byrnes has stepped out, stepped forward and stepped back to the intense, raw roots of the drum for his new album of solo …
Track: Mark Shippy & Alex Cunningham – ‘Clear Walkway’: US Maple guitarist brings the improv for guitar and violin
AFICIONADOS of the free music, this way please: Mark Shippy, former guitarist with the legendary Chicago noise-rock voyagers U.S. Maple, has got together with St Louis, Missouri violin improviser Alex Cunningham for a real exploration of what the two stringed instruments can achieve together in and of the moment. They’re releasing a two-handed album, Ghost …
ALBUM REVIEW: John Dwyer, Nick Murray, Brad Caulkins, Tom Dolas and Greg Coates – ‘Witch Egg’
There’s so many ideas in Witch Egg, from so many genres and eras: mod, krautrock, free jazz, even acid jazz; they’re arrived at, explored at once, captured, moved on from. It speaks much of the restless creativity at the heart of this, John Dwyer. It’s quite a journey for a fringe music head
TRACKS: John Dwyer, Nick Murray, Brad Caulkins, Tom Dolas and Greg Coates – ‘Greener Pools’ and ‘City Maggot’: Osees bods steps out into jazz-psych impro
IF YOU thought a mere four albums in 2020 – the twin suns of Protean Threat and its through-the-looking-glass rerub Panther Rotate, the limited Metamorphose and the cassette-only Levitation Sessions – would maybe dry the wellspring of Osees’ John Dwyer, well boy! were you ever wrong; he’s back with a new associate project, who are …