June 14, 2019:
Longer days here in the Northern Hemisphere, warmer and sunnier weather making for happy listening. And happy I've been this week listening to new albums for the most recent mailing list, especially the 4 albums we picked up from Poland's Fundacja Sluchaj! label, which we're referring to simply as FSR; shamefully, we Squids are unsure how to pronounce the label name correctly. Our ignorance on language doesn't relate to the quality of this label, and we're very excited about adding their releases to our catalog, with plans for the latest four albums to be ordered in early July (which you can ask to be notified about on our Upcoming Releases Page.
The four CDs we started with draw from players with strong presence in our catalog, including Martin Kuchen, Joe Morris, Tyshawn Sorey, Barry Guy, Gerry Hemingway, Peter Evans and Agusti Fernández. Those artists cross-over to core labels we carry including Clean Feed, Firehouse 12, Creative Sources, Hot Cup, Emanem, Intakt, &c. &c. From the live pyrotechnics of the Free Radicals At DOM to the wonderful introspectiveness of Sumpflegende, the wild and unpredictable collective work on Cowboy Transfiguration, or the stunning mastery of Illuminated Silence, this label's taste and selection has had me grinning from ear to ear. It's a great start to summer listening!
Phicus / Martin Kuchen: Sumpflegende (Fundacja Sluchaj!)
The Catalan free improvising trio Phicus of Alex Reviriego on double bass, Ferran Fages on electric guitar, and Vasco Trilla on drums, continue their pursuit of 4th partners, here joined by Swedish saxophonist Martin Kuchen on tenor & alto saxophones for a studio album of collective improvisation with elements of ea/lowercase playing balanced with dynamic language.
Barrett, Brad / Joe Morris / Tyshawn Sorey : Cowboy Transfiguration (Fundacja Sluchaj!)
Using a participatory compositional process, the NY trio of Brad Barrett on bass & cello, Joe Morris on guitar, and Tyshawn Sorey on drums, follow a framework to make choices based on density, rhythmic ratios, register, melody, and timbre, encouraged to employ small particles of sounds and blend timbres with an awareness of implied pulse and an inclination to disrupt it.
Kimura, Izumi / Barry Guy / Gerry Hemingway : Illuminated Silence (Fundacja Sluchaj!)
Performing at St. Ann's Church in Dublin, Ireland, the trio of Japanese pianist living in Ireland, Izumi Kimura, is joined by London bassist Barry Guy and Swiss based drummer Gerry Hemingway for 8 superb improvisations, including renderings of Guy's "Blue Horizon", "Ancients" and "Finding It" and Agusti Fernandez' "How to Go Into a Room You Are Already In".
Peter Evans / Agusti Fernandez / Barry Guy : Free Radicals At DOM (Fundacja Sluchaj!)
Radical masters of free jazz--Spanish pianist Agusti Fernandez and British bassist Barry Guy--meet young(er) radical trumpeter Peter Evans at the Moscow Cultural Center DOM for this 2017 concert of free improvisation, a fiery and informed concert of two sets, each in three parts, and an encore, showing technical mastery, inventive interaction, and sheer excitement in performance.
From the new PNL releases we picked up this month, two are from the 2018 Roskilde Festival, in Roskilde, Denmark, where drummer Nilssen-Love was asked to set up two performances. Following his world-traveling experience, for one concert he enlisted longtime collaborator Frode Gjerstad and three Brazilian players: Felipe Zenicola on electric bass, Kiko Dinucci on electric guitar, and Paulinho Bicolor on cuica. The last is a percussive instrument of near-vocal attributes, adding a secondary layer of rhythm and percussion to the quintet. Dinucci often plays in a funky percussive style, giving the band four rhythm instruments when desired, and that desire is prominent throughout their invigorating concert.
In contrast, the other concert Nilssen-Love organized brought together three Japanese free improvisers, most notably, legendary Japanese free jazz saxophonist Akira Sakata, who also vocalizes. The other two players are noted from more rock/experimental groups--noise artist Kohei Gomi (Pain Jerk) and Toshiji Mikawa (Incapacitants)--and Brazilian guitarist Kiko Dinucci is borrowed from the other concert. The sound of the band is sometimes abrasive, but always quick-witted and informed, laying back or exploding dynamically as the music evolves over the concert.
Nilssen-Love, Paal: New Brazilian Funk (PNL)
Brought together by dummer Paal Nilssen-Love for the 2018 Roskilde Festival in Denmark, this quintet merges Norwegians Nilssen-Love and long-time collaborator Frode Gjerstad on alto sax with the Brazilian trio of Felipe Zenicola on electric bass, Kiko Dinucci on electric guitar, and Paulinho Bicolor on cuica, for an thrilling and exuberant concert of energetic improvisation.
Nilssen-Love, Paal: New Japanese Noise (PNL)
One of two concerts drummer Paal Nilssen-Love organized for the 2018 Roskilde festival in Denmark is this quintet, adding Brazilian guitarist Kiko Dinucci from the "New Brazilian Funk" concert, alongside legendary Japanese free jazz saxophonist Akira Sakata, noise artist Kohei Gomi (Pain Jerk) and Toshiji Mikawa (Incapacitants), for a concert of controlled chaos and mastery.
Also released on PNL, a notable and clever release from the long-running duo of Chicago reedist Ken Vandermark and label-leader, drummer Paal Nilssen-Love. Their duo has run for the better part of a decade, and this is their 10th album, with many tours and concerts throughout. Rather than release new material, the duo took to YouTube, and with the help of Lasse Marhaugh, sought out videos of their own concerts posted by fans. These videos are of varying quality and length, but capture spectacular moments from the duo's tours. They set parameters that they would extract 60 seconds from the audio of each video selected, and join two such segments for each track. Programming across the album is based on aesthetic choices, looking for moments that work well together or made a point musically. With Marhaug's help the resulting tracks have a consistency in volume and apparent quality, and the transitions between segments create aural excitement, novelty and curiosity. It's a unique idea for a live album yielding compelling results, the listener never quite certain what will come next, nor getting bogged down in any particular section. Kudos!
Vandermark, Ken / Paal Nilssen-Love: Screen-Off (PNL)
For their 10th album, the duo of multi-reedist Ken Vandermark and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love took inspiration from experimental cinema, enlisting producer Lasse Marhaug tp scour YouTube for concerts from their past 10 years, extraction 60 seconds of audio from each and joining them into 2-minute segments, 21 of which create this unusual album of awe-inspiring performance.
I recently wrote about the Colorado collective Biota and their new album Fragment For Balance. That album was the prelude for the magnificent new box set, a deserving 6 CD collection of the first 5 studio albums from the band, and adding a new CD, Counterbalance, built from their no doubt vast archives of recordings. Newcomers to the band will find this the perfect introduction to their music, which is hard to pin down as they bring focus to fragile music that flows like a beautiful daydream. This band has captivated me for more than three decades, and I can't find many bands to compare them to; if forced, I might suggest Conventum, Oregon, or even early Jade Warrior, but none of those fits in the reminiscing daylight Biota has evolved to. Strongly "Recommended".
Biota/Mnemonists: The Biota Box [6 CD BOX SET] (Recommended Records)
From Mnemonists to Biota, this box collects the first 5 studio album released by the Colorado collective on the UK Recommended Records label, adding a bonus disc of all new recordings built from the group archives, and includes 14-page booklet of artwork & historical notes shedding light on their gorgeous abstractions through free improvisation and studio composition.
One other album I've been obsessing over lately is the new Fire! Orchestra album, Arrival. I've been a fan of all configurations of Fire!, from the core trio, quartet, septet and full Fire! Orchestras. The previous album, The Hands brought the band to its core of drummer Andreas Werliin, bassist Johan Berthling, and multi-reedist Mats Gustafsson. Prior to that the full Orchestra album Ritual was the largest to date, 21 performers performing their own work "Ritual" in 5 parts. So the new album, Arrival is a compromise on size, 14 performers with 2 vocalists, a string quartet, and an additional wind section. The material this time is very song-based, taking on tracks by Robbie Basho, and even Chic.
This last comment is more about myself than Fire! Orchestra, but I found it rewarding when I made this next set of connections, ultimately linking back to why I appreciate Fire!: The Chic song played is "At Last I Am Free". I never realized that this song was from Chic, who I associate mostly with the song "Freak Out". "At Last I Am Free" I know from Robert Wyatt's Nothing Can Stop Us Now, an album I've been listening to for decades. The version on Fire! Orchestra was properly credited to Bernard Edwards & Nile Rodgers, and simple research brought me quickly to Chic and the C'est Chic album. I was never a big disco fan back in the day, neither was I part of the Disco Sucks movement. Which is why I never listened to Chic's full albums (or connected them to songs I respect like Sister Sledge's "We Are Family", or amusing songs like "Rapper's Delite" which came out of "Good Times", another Edwards/Rodgers composition).
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