CLUB OWNER, down in New York’s famous East Village, at which he’s the architect of deeply grooving late-night jam sessions and of which the New York Times notes as a space “where everything goes”; and a saxophonist by instrumental trade, either wholly or partly responsible for at least 30 full-length recordings, it’s hard to argue against the notion that Ilhan Ershahin is anything but fully immersed in this thing we call jazz.
And, developing from those small-hours excursions down at Loisada Avenue is a new venture for the multi-talented Swedish-Turkish musician: a hot trio with an equally hot new record to come in the spring.
Ilhan’s recruited sticksman Kenny Wollesen, who’s worked with everyone from Ron Sexsmith and Tom Waits to John Zorn and God Is My Co-Pilot, and guitarist, bassist and electronicist Dave Harrington, of former Matador electronic dub/downbeatz duo Darkside, to try and bring that loose, open-minded, modern club melodicism to record.
A first single is out now, and it’s here too, for the jazz buffs among you: it’s called “And It Happens Everyday”, and it strikes me as a seven-and-a-half minute aubade of fresh possibilities, recreating the high-summer moment when the latest and most glorious of nights bleeds fully and strongly into an entire new day; guitars, sax and sampled cow bells finding and greeting each other, parting the night-time clouds to let in the fresh wonder. Take a listen below and be beguiled.
More than a little happy to be involved, Dave Harrington says: “It was the first project I really threw myself into when I first moved to Los Angeles and so was informed in large part by my first experiences here: my nostalgia for New York and also the imagined Los Angeles of the mind that I try to live in; a place where the psychedelic can be both inspiring and sinister, and where possibility and reality are in constant competition and conversation.”
The album, Invite Your Eye, captures three collaborators at the top of their game, and is a carefully curated splicing of studio-based composition and raw improvisation, taken apart and reconstructed with dubbing and editing.
Ilhan Ersahin, Dave Harrington, Kenny Wollesen’s Invite Your Eye will be released by Nublu Records digitally on Friday, March 4th, and is available to pre-order here.
Connect with Ilhan Ersahin elsewhere online at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram; Dave Harrington on Twitter and Instagram; and Kenny Wollesen on Instagram.
