“Inner Landscape” is a solo work by cellist Daniel Levin, released on Clean Feed Records and consist in 6 recordings – landscapes/soundscapes. Tracks 1 and 2 were recorded May 24th, 2009 at Brecht Forum, New York, NY by Robert O’Haire, while tracks 3 to 6 on July 14th, 2009 at The Chateau, Chicago, IL by Brian J. Sulpizio.
Ed Hazell in his liner notes for “Inner Landscape” wrote: Daniel Levin is “a samurai with a calligrapher’s brush in his hand instead of a sword.†And well, Daniel Levin brings six improvising pieces, lead us through moments made of light touch to brutal noise, from abstract fantasies and introspective searches to contorted and abrasive explorations.
It’s definitively not an easy-listening, but Levin delivered a sparkling and glowing experiment. Read more Daniel Levin – Inner Landscape (2011)
free jazz
John Zorn – Enigmata (2011)
Pour les connaisseurs. Strictly. Madness in pure essence, in small, but deadly doses. Under the moniker of John Zorn, Trevor Dunn – Electric 5-string bass (Mr. Bungle, Fantomas, Trevor Dunn’s Trio-Convulsant, Secret Chiefs 3, The Rob Price Quartet, Shelley Burgon, Zorn, etc) and Marc Ribot – electric guitar (impossible to enumerate… Tom Waits, John Zorn, David Sylvian, Jack McDuff, Wilson Pickett, The Lounge Lizards, Arto Lindsay, T-Bone Burnett, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Cibo Matto, Elysian Fields, Sam Phillips, Elvis Costello, David Poe, Allen Ginsberg, Foetus, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Susana Baca, The Black Keys, Stan Ridgway, Vinicio Capossela, Alain Bashung, Lyenn, Hector Zazou, McCoy Tyner, Elton John, Madeline Peyroux, Marianne Faithfull, Leonid Fedorov, Tonio K, Andres Calamaro and many others, but also involved in a couple of projects as well) take us down on the path of compositions versus improvisations, in a tenebrous and tumultuous world of avant-garde (jazz) music. Read more John Zorn – Enigmata (2011)
Joe McPhee Survival Unit III – Syncronicity (2011)
The trouble with the so-called avant-garde music is mainly that most of the experiences were already being made in the 60s and 70s. Blowing mindlessly and senselessly your saxophone it doesn’t surprise anybody anymore and plenty of others did it before not once. Well, McPhee is one of those old guys who were there in the 60s as well just like he’s exploring the borders of the free jazz relentless now days. So, McPhee is a true survival literally. Survival Unit III made of Joe McPhee – alto saxophone and pocket trumpet, Fred Lonberg-Holm – cello and electronics and Michael Zerang – drums are trying once again to rendering some order into the chaos, to make sense in a contorted world that sometimes seems senseless. It’s a hard job, difficult task and mysterious are the ways, isn’t it? Read more Joe McPhee Survival Unit III – Syncronicity (2011)
Iro Haarla Quintet – Vespers (2011)
Iro Haarla composer-pianist-harpist and her Finnish-Norwegian ensemble consist of Mathias Eick – trumpet, Trygve Seim – tenor and soprano saxophones, Ulf Krokfors – double-bass and Jon Christensen – drums, six years after releasing of “Northbound†are back with this brand new album released under the same trademark of ECM. Classy and gloomy, this is a slowburn, kind of candle light in the dark, winter night. Quiet and improvising, this “free ballads” have a kind of family reunion feeling where everybody tell his own story of the past few years, sometimes simultaneously, “speaking” over each other. Sometimes vague, often soaked with the particular Northern melancholy or directly with the taste of sadness, “Vespers” sounds as the score of our desperate alienation. Read more Iro Haarla Quintet – Vespers (2011)
Tim Berne – Insomnia (2011)
Tim Berne was born in Syracuse, New York in 1954. Twenty years later Berne encountered a saxophonist who was selling his alto, and bought it on impulse. “There was just something about the sound of the saxophone that got to me,” he says. Berne moved to New York in 1974 and began issuing his own albums on his own Empire label in 1979. Over the next five years he would record and distribute five albums under his own name which included such musicians as Ed Schuller, Olu Dara, Paul Motian, John Carter, Glenn Ferris and Bill Frisell. Following two recordings for the Italian Soul Note label, Berne recorded Fulton Street Maul and Sanctified Dreams for Columbia Records. In the late 1990s Berne founded Screwgun Records, which has released his own recordings.
Berne played in band such as: Bloodcount with Michael Formanek, Chris Speed, Jim Black, Marc Ducret; Caos Totale with Mark Dresser, Steve Swell, Bobby Previte, Herb Robertson, Marc Ducret, Django Bates; Big Satan with Tom Rainey, Marc Ducret; Hard Cell with Tom Rainey, Craig Taborn; Science Friction with Tom Rainey, Craig Taborn, Marc Ducret; Paraphrase with Tom Rainey, Drew Gress; Miniature with Joey Baron, Hank Roberts;Buffalo Collision with Hank Roberts, Ethan Iverson, Dave King and BBC Trio with Nels Cline, Jim Black. Beyond his recordings as a bandleader, Berne has recorded and/or performed with guitarist Bill Frisell, avant-garde composer/sax player John Zorn, violinist Mat Maneri, guitarist David Torn, cellist Hank Roberts, trumpet player Herb Robertson, the ARTE Quartett and as a member of the cooperative trio Miniature. Read more Tim Berne – Insomnia (2011)
The Thing, chestii, Lulu
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Şi fiindcă am fost cuminte am fost invitat la concertul The Thing de ieri seară din Club Control. Dacă o prietenă se îngrijora dacă se mai găsesc bilete, la faţa locului lucrurile erau exact cum preconizam: linişte şi pace, câţiva lălăiţi şi rătăciţi. Cu tragerea de timp de rigoare până a început spectacolul ne-am adunat cam 100 de persoane, în mare parte cei care ştiam despre ce este vorba, dar – de exemplu – în faţa mea era un tip gelat cu prietena care se amuzau privind pe telefon nişte poze de la pescuit… Acum treaba e simplă: când o trupă nu e de găsit pe torrente, n-are clipuri pe YouTube, e ca şi cum n-ar exista. Cu toate acestea The Thing au acţionat conform aşteptărilor, Action Jazz sau Free Music, cum vreţi să-i spuneţi, bateristul Paal Nilssen-Love este un Dumnezeu, Mats Gustafsson a fost dezlănţuit şi Ingebrigt Håker Flaten a tras cu dârzenie de contrabasul său. Parcă n-au fost la fel de spulberători ca pe discuri, însă când vine vorba de muzică Free, nimic nu este repetabil, o cântare nu este la fel ca cealaltă.
În schimb m-am mirat că nu vindeau CD-uri, tricouri, chestii din astea de-ale sufletului, Read more The Thing, chestii, Lulu
Combat Astronomy – Earth Divided By Zero (2010)
Un alt suflet contorsionat este şi acest James Huggett pitit sub titulatura Combat Astronomy. Avem de a face cu un Doom Industrial bine condimentat cu elemente Psihedelice şi infuzii de Jazz, fapt deloc surprinzător dacă ne uităm la lista artiştilor numiţi ca influenţe de James: Magma, Meshuggah, Miles Davis, Sun Ra, Hawkwind, Godflesh, Sunn O))), Soft Machine. Kate Bush, God, Black Sabbath, Can, Amon Duul, etc.
Pe lângă Huggett în studio în funcţie de album au lucrat Martin Archer, Elaine di Falco, Mick Beck, Charlie Collins, Mike Ward, iar live a beneficiat de suportul unor nume ca Anthony Poretti, John Davis, Myrriah Resneck, Nick Griffin, Dave Willey, Raoul Rossiter şi Grant Jackson.
Dacă primele trei materiale (1999-2002) sunt incursiuni Noise destul de abstracte şi neprietenoase, Huggett experimentează şi progresează de la material la material şi odată cu lansarea albumului „Dematerialised Passenger” din 2005, Combat Astronomy se conturează ca un proiect incisiv care combină cu mult nerv elemente Doom cu zgomote şi abordări Industriale şi introduce construcţii Psihedelice ce invocă Pink Floyd-ul condimentate cu infuzii incitante de Jazz. Chitara bariton – un instrument ce adaugă chitarei tradiţionale greutatea unui bas şi are un sunet mult mai consistent datorită acordajului diferit – folosită de Huggett bâzâie zgomotos, riff-urile au apăsare şi adaugă sonorităţi sănătoase de Heavy muzicii.
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În 1999 Read more Combat Astronomy – Earth Divided By Zero (2010)
