Do you remember “7 Seconds”? It was a hit single back in 1996 and received a Grammy nomination, won the Best Song title at the MTV Europe Music Awards. The album was entitled “Man”, “7 Seconds” featuring Youssou N’Dour, the track “Woman” is Neneh Cherry take on James Brown’s 1966 track “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”, “Trouble Man” a cover of a Marvin Gaye track, while another track, “Together Now”, featured Tricky.
In 2006, Cherry announced the formation of a new band, cirKus, releasing two albums “Laylow” in 2006, respectively “Medicine” in 2009.
Mats Gustafsson (saxophones), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (double bass), and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums), knowned as The Thing, are one of the most incisive experimental/free Jazz bands of the contemporary Jazz scene.
This four artist together delivering the eight tracks of “The Cherry Thing”. Album will be released in June 2012. Read more Neneh Cherry and The Thing – The Cherry Thing (2012)
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John Zorn (Moonchild Trio) – Templars-In Sacred Blood (2012)
In 2006 John Zorn formed the hardcore voice/bass/drums trio of Mike Patton, Trevor Dunn, and Joey Baron which became known as the Moonchild Trio. The very same year the trio performed and released two albums of Zorn’s compositions: “Moonchild: Songs Without Words” – an album inspired in part by Aleister Crowley, Antonin Artaud and Edgard Varèse and “Astronome”. A third album with the trio, but also featuring Zorn, Ikue Mori, Jamie Saft and chorus, “Six Litanies for Heliogabalus”, was released in 2007. Their fourth release “The Crucible” appeared in 2008, and “Ipsissimus” – one of the best albums of 2010 and my personal favorite albums of all time – was released in 2010.
Now Joey Baron – Drums, Trevor Dunn – Bass, John Medeski – Organ and Mike Patton – Voice are back with the 6th CD in the Moonchild legacy. All songs was written by Zorn and they spend over one year in the making. Disturbing and tumultuous, sometimes extremely intense or silently subtle, the 8 songs of “Templars-In Sacred Blood” will take the listeners into another mystical journey. Read more John Zorn (Moonchild Trio) – Templars-In Sacred Blood (2012)
Usher – Climax [Jasm RMX feat Rich Prewett on Guitar]
Believe it or not, but better do, Usher is one of the best-selling artists in American music history, having sold over 23 million copies in the United States and over 65 million records worldwide which makes him one of the Best selling music artists of all time. He also has won numerous awards including seven Grammys. At the end of 2009, Usher was named the number one Hot 100 artist of the 2000s decade. Billboard named him the second most successful artist of the 2000s decade, with his 2004 album Confessions being ranked as the top solo album of the 2000s decade. Honestly – but hell yeah, I’m just so dumb! – listening to his music, I would never thought so. For my un-Billboarded ears, Usher sounds like a black, diluted (commercial) version of… Prince. And as a reiteration of Dali, the difference between Prince and Usher is that Prince is Prince… Think of what you want.
Somebody had the marvelous idea to promote Usher’s upcoming seventh studio album “Looking 4 Myself” which will be released on 12 June, 2012, on Indaba by putting to remix Usher’s “Climax”, his latest collaboration with Dildo, sorry for that! with Diplo, considered one of the most influential music tastemakers in the industry. If that’s true, now I actually understand how the mainstream is populated exclusively with shitty music! 😆
BUT, the funniest thing is the grand price: a flyaway trip to meet Usher! 😆 😆 😆 Read more Usher – Climax [Jasm RMX feat Rich Prewett on Guitar]
Get The Blessing – OC DC (2012)
Winners of the BBC Jazz Award 2008 for their debut album “All Is Yes” (Cake/Candid), Get The Blessing is currently one of the UK’s most exciting live bands. Featuring bassist Jim Barr and drummer Clive Deamer from trip-hop legends Portishead, plus the twin horns & electronic devices of saxophonist Jake McMurchie and trumpeter Pete Judge, GTB has forged an unique signature sound that defies genres and merged into one Jazz and Post-Rock instant and infectiously.
Their second album, “Bugs In Amber” was described as “the post-jazz soundtrack to an imaginary low-budget James Bond movie remade by Tarkovsky and starring Buster Keaton” and has received widespread critical and popular acclaim. With influences ranging from Ornette Coleman and Tortoise, to Blondie and Samuel Beckett, GTB has been described as: “A scintillating live experience that will leave you amazed, questioning pre-conceived ideas of music genres, eye-opening and jaw-dropping, there is simply no other band in the world quite like Get The Blessing.”
I’m always skeptical when the media praise an artist, but when I saw the video for their new album “OC DC” it just ripped my head off. Read more Get The Blessing – OC DC (2012)
Ballister – Mechanisms (2012)
Ballister is a hard hitting trio having one foot at Chicago and the other one at Oslo and it’s comprised of Dave Rempis (Saxophones) Fred Lonberg-Holm (Cello & Electronics) and Paal Nilssen-Love (Percussion). Dave Rempis was a member of The Vandermark Five, and has developed many Chicago-based groups for which he is currently known. These include The Rempis Percussion Quartet, The Engines, The Rempis/Rosaly Duo, The Outskirts,The Rempis/Daisy Duo, Bishop/Rempis/Kessler/Zerang, and Wheelhouse. Past working groups include Triage, and the Dave Rempis Quartet. Many of these groups have been documented on the Okkadisk, 482 Music, Not Two, Solitaire, and Utech record labels. Rempis also performs and tours with Ken Vandermark’s Territory Band and Resonance.
Chicago based cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm has played and studied music in a variety of situations from the Juilliard School to the gutter. A former student of Anthony Braxton, Morton Feldman, Bunita Marcus and Pauline Oliveros, his primary projects are his Valentine Trio and The Lightbox Orchestra. He is also a member of a number of ongoing collective projects (The Boxhead Ensemble, The Friction Brothers with Michaels Zerang and Colligan, The Flatlands Collective, Keefe Jackson’s Fast Citizens) He also currently plays in groups led by Joe McPhee Peter Brotzmann, and Ken Vandermark. He has contributed cello sounds to numerous recording projects by rock groups including Califone, Freakwater, God-is-my-co-pilot, L’altra, Smog, Super Chunk, US Maple, Wilco and many others.
Paal Nilssen-Love has stated his position as one of the most profiled drummers in Europe today, he has made numberless performances at festivals and clubs in Europe and USA and participated on more than 50 recordings. He plays in several bands and project such as Atomic, Element, The Thing, Scorch Trio, School Days, Territory Band and collaborate with artists such as Pat Metheny, Peter Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark, Joe McPhee, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Terrie Ex (The Ex), John Butcher, Lasse Marhaug – along many others. He runs his own annual festival – All Ears – for improvised music in Oslo. Read more Ballister – Mechanisms (2012)
John Zorn – Nosferatu (2012)
Over one hour of genius and madness. Zorn strikes again and by his side are guys like Bill Laswell on bass, Kevin Norton playing vibraphone, drums, orchestral bells, tibetan prayer bowls, Rob Burger on piano and organ, while Zorn killing his piano, alto saxophone, Fender Rhodes, and build some dark electronic layers.
Always full of surprises, Zorn delivered another masterpiece, “Nosferatu” is a pearl, a rare diamond, dark, deep, still shining and colorful album, I do my best to avoid to stick to it any label, although this is definitively Jazz, but it’s blended with million subtle shades of sound kicking off from furious Metal hurricanes (as in “The Battle of Good and Evil”) to mystic, charmingly strange and abstract moments of silence and disturbing noises (as in “Hypnosis”). Read more John Zorn – Nosferatu (2012)
Trioscapes – Separate Realities (2012)
Trioscapes started in the summer of 2011 when Dan Briggs(Between the Buried and Me) contacted Walter Fancourt (Casual Curious, Brand New Life) and Matt Lynch (Eyris) about working up a rendition of the Mahavishnu Orchestra classic “Celestial Terrestrial Commuters” and messing around with a few original ideas with the intent of playing a one-off show. “Blast Off,” the first song released a few months back impressed both the media and the fans and the expectation of the promised debut album raised to boiling high. Released on 08th May, 2012, by Metal Blade Records, “Separate Realities” will blow your head off. Read more Trioscapes – Separate Realities (2012)
Thinking Plague – Decline And Fall (2012)
![Thinking Plague - Decline And Fall [2012]](http://brushvox.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/thinking-plague-decline-and-fall-2012.png?w=150)
Generally empires are have this fate of decline and fall and I honestly believe that the Music Industry it’s an empire – and for sure it’s in deep and profound crises.
When music is only a product, sometimes quite secondary one of an industry self-titled “music” industry and all those products are pretty boring, predictable and tasteless, but similar pieces, bands like Thinking Plague are quite rare birds in the gray panorama.
Inspired by avant-art rock bands like Arts Bears and Henry Cow, as well as by contemporary classical composers, Thinking Plague has earned an avid international following by forging a singular synthesis of prog-rock with 20th century classical, folk, and jazz.
Founded in 1982 in Denver by Mike Johnson and bass guitarist/drummer Bob Drake, Thinking Plague built its following the old-fashioned way, though word of mouth and recordings passed around by fellow musicians and fans. The band’s line-up was enforced by classically trained vocalist Sharon Bradford, keyboardist Harry Fleishman and drummer Rick Arsenault. Released their debut album, “….A Thinking Plague” in 1984 on their own Endemic label, and pressing only 500 copies of the LP, the band received national attention. Read more Thinking Plague – Decline And Fall (2012)
Brad Mehldau Trio – Ode (2012)
As I previously said not only once, I’m not an expert in Jazz, but honestly, I’m so-so-so-so bored in most of the Rock/Metal, eventually so-called Rock/Metal (mandatory “core”) bands, that Jazz sometimes offers me the only reliable refugee.
Born Bradford Alexander Mehldau in 1970 in Jacksonville, Florida, Mehldau is an American jazz pianist. He attended William H. Hall High School in West Hartford and participated in Hall’s prestigious jazz program. While a sophomore in high school, he won Berklee College’s Best All-Around Musician Award. Mehldau moved to New York in 1988 to study jazz at The New School, studying under Fred Hersch, Junior Mance and Kenny Werner. He played as sideman with a variety of musicians, most importantly with the Joshua Redman quartet, before forming his own trio in 1994, with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy, and later Jeff Ballard, who succeeded Rossy in 2005. In addition to his trio work, Mehldau collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny, releasing two albums with him and embarking on a worldwide tour along with Grenadier and Ballard. Read more Brad Mehldau Trio – Ode (2012)
Galactic – Carnivale Electricos (2012)
Although I listen and I really enjoy lot of Jazz music, I’m the first to admit, I’m not an “expert”, and by the way, generally speaking I’m not an “expert” and anyone who claims he (she) is one, he (she) is a pretender (and liar). Gee! 🙂
Now let’s get back to Galactic.
Originally formed in 1994 as an octet, under the name Galactic Prophylactic, they delivering a mixture of electric Rock, Funk, Blues and Jazz. I get to listen them because behind the drum kit it’s Stanton Moore, who played in Corrosion Of Conformity, knowned him from Garage A Trois, the Stanton Moore Trio, Midnite Disturbers, played with jazz-funk keyboardist Robert Walter, with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Boots Riley of the Coup on the project Street Sweeper Social Club, with Dragon Smoke and MG5. Read more Galactic – Carnivale Electricos (2012)
