The Squid's Ear Magazine


Roberts, Matana : Always (Relative Pitch)

Two passionate studio improvisations from saxophonist Matana Roberts, who lovingly dedicates the album to "those bard(s) of summer...the ideas herein of which I gleaned/interrogated/investigated/celebrated with you..."; subtle, rich, and inspiring.
 

Price: $13.95



Quantity:

In Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 2.00 units

Sample The Album:




product information:

Personnel:



Matana Roberts-alto saxophone


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




UPC: 616892282044

Label: Relative Pitch
Catalog ID: RPR1036
Squidco Product Code: 20384

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2015
Country: USA
Packaging: Digipack
Recorded at Park West Studios in Brookyln, New York, on May 6th, 2014 by Jim Clouse.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Internationally renowned composer, band leader, saxophonist, sound experimentalist and mixed-media practitioner; works in many contexts and mediums, including improvisation, dance, poetry, and theater. She made two records as a core member of the Sticks And Stones trio in the early 2000s and has gone on to release a diverse body of solo and ensemble work under her own name on Constellation and Central Control over the past decade. She is perhaps best known for her acclaimed Coin Coin project, a multi-chapter work of "panoramic sound quilting" that aims to expose the mystical roots and channel the intuitive spirit-raising traditions of American creative expression while maintaining a deep and substantive engagement with sound. Her innovative work has forged new conceptual approaches to considering narrativity, history, and political expression within improvisatory structures. past member of the BRC: Black Rock Coalition and the AACM: Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. holds two degrees in music performance. based in New York City."-Matana Roberts website


Artist Biographies

"Roberts has been called "a major talent" (The Wire) and "the spokeswoman for a new, politically conscious and refractory Jazz scene" (Jazzthetik). Her Coin Coin work has been widely and highly praised for its stylistic innovations and narrative power. Noted music critic Peter Margasak has written of Coin Coin: "Memory is a powerful thing, but it's so private, fluid, and unreliable that it can seem almost impossible to capture in a work of art-and history is often no more stable, once you look closely enough. Roberts has succeeded at evoking both, though, and gives her audience a long look at something ghostly, tragic, and beautiful. She is carving out her own aesthetic space, startling in its originality and gripping in its historic and social power."

A self-taught mixed media composer, the Chicago-born Roberts earned two degrees in performance from a smattering of American institutions but received her primary training from free arts programs in the American Public School System.

She is a past member of the Black Rock Coalition (BRC) and The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). She has been a Van Lier Fellow, a Brecht Forum Fellow, a Copeland Fellow, a Jerome fellow, an ICASP fellow, an FCA awardee, and an Alpert Award In The Arts winner. She is also a recipient of the Doris Duke Impact Award and the Doris Duke Artist Award. She has been invited to teach, lecture, run workshops and/or take up artistic residencies in countless places under different conditions and with diverse communities over the past decade and is a past faculty member of the Banff Creative Music Workshop, Rhythmic Music Conservatory, School for Improvised Music, and Bard College.

Throughout the summer of 2015, Roberts engaged in a series of open-ended public explorations as part of an extended residency at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She titled this series of research-based sound excavations i call america, building on the title of the Whitney's inaugural exhibition, America Is Hard to See. Building on this work she has gone on to present three public exhibitions of her graphic score work, including i call america II in 2016 and "jump at the sun..." in 2018 at the Fridman Gallery in NYC. The first European exhibition of her work happened at the Bergen Kunsthall in Bergen Norway, 2018.

In 2015 she collaborated with the filmmaker Laura Hanna on a film short entitled CODE: Stop & Frisk. From this work in 2016, she began to organize public art talks and concert fundraisers that contributed to the families of victims of police brutality. In 2017 she built off this work creating a mixed media work for a 32 piece chorus, entitled "...breathe...". It was premiered in Berlin, Germany as part of the No festival, sharing the bill with Pussy Riot. The piece was then premiered in NYC also in 2017, at the Roulette Intermedium.

In 2015 Roberts began her "In Memorium" series, initiated by an interaction with Eva Hesse's sculpture untiled no. 1 at the Whitney Museum. In 2016 the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery commissioned a piece for saxophone septet called "its all a damn game," which was created in conversation with Andrews' artwork and writing. Next in the series was a mixed media piece for chorus, commissioned by the Berlin Jazz Festival, entitled "For Pina", based on the work of dance legend Pina Bausch. In 2017 she performed an in memorium interaction with Louise Bourgeois's Spider that was on view as part of the exhibition Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding Portrait.

In 2017 Roberts also presented solo work in conjunction with the exhibition COSMOPOLIS #1 COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE at the Centre Pompidou. In 2018 Roberts presented another new mixed media piece for drum choir at the Park Avenue Armory, NYC. Also in 2018 Roberts toured alongside British sound artist Kelly Jayne Jones, in a collaborative piece that combined different elements of their mixed media practices.

Roberts has played with and alongside Rob Mazurek, Myra Melford, Vijay Iyer, Roscoe Mitchell, Greg Tate, Nicole Mitchell, Henry Grimes, Kyp Malone, Meshell N' degeocello, Jayne Cortez, Seb Rochford, Fred Anderson, Latasha Diggs, George Lewis, Craig Taborn, Tyshawn Sorey, David Berhman, Kyp Malone, Pat Thomas, Pauline Oliveros, Reg E. Gaines, Daniel Givens, Savion Glover, Anthony Braxton, Kid Lucky, Liberty Ellman, Amina Claudine Meyers, Jeff Parker, Handsome Furs, Robert Mitchell, Quest Love, Julius Hemphill Sextet, Merce Cunningham, Okkyung Lee, Joe Maneri, Beans, Bill T Jones, Josh Abrams, Chad Taylor, Dave Douglas and John Herndon, John King, among many others. She has recorded as a guest musician with rock, pop, and electronic groups as diverse as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, TV On The Radio, Savath & Savalas, Thee Silver Mt. Zion, Deerhoof and performance artists My Barbarian. She also continues to work as a sidewoman on a plethora of collaborative projects exploring a variety of artistic mediums.

Since the release of her last record, she has been extensively traveling, exploring parts of the American south, western Europe, Africa, Indonesia, and India by air, train, and water. These voyages have allowed her to build on a personal archive of experience which has inspired much of her work to date, with a thematic focus on migration, memory, sound, and the place of history in uncertain times. Roberts is also a 2019 DAAD fellow in music composition.

Of her work, Matana says the following: "At my artistic core, I am firmly dedicated to creating a unique and very personal body of sound work that speaks to, and reminds people of all walks of life to reach, stand up, give voice, regardless of difference, created from mere labels of intellectual classification. In my ideal world the idea of 'difference', is an illusion designed only for modern economic division and elitist intellectual hierarchy. Through my life's work, I stand creatively in defiance." "

-Matana Roberts Website (http://cstrecords.com/artist/matana-roberts/)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Untitled n. 1 33:24

2. Untitled n. 2 9:56

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Solo Artist Recordings
Recordings by or featuring Reed & Wind Players
Top Sellers and Staff Lists for 2015

Search for other titles on the label:
Relative Pitch.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Other Recommended Releases:
Jessen, Kyle
Primitive
(Relative Pitch)
An album of cathartic release in five solo saxophone improvisations from Omaha, Nebraska reedist Kyle Jessen, aggressive and angst-filled expositions that reflect anger and isolation, but also powerful statements of technical skill and personal expression, from the brutal "Death Trap" to the more introspective explorations of "Poltergeist"; exactingly purgative.
Malfon, Don
Mutable
(Relative Pitch)
Using multiphonics, extended techniques and an intuitive sense of drama and narrative, Barcelona alto and baritone saxophonist Don Malfon takes his listeners on an 8-part journey of "Mutable" solo performances, using every inch of his horn (including inserting resonant objects), his body, tongue and breath to investigate the outer limits of his instruments.
Abdou, Sakina
Goodbye Ground
(Relative Pitch)
An incredibly well-rounded musician on sax and flute, performing in both improvised and contemporary settings including Dedalus Ensemble and work with Etron Foun drummer Guigou Chenevier, here Sakina Abdou presents a series of solo saxophone improvisations recorded at her home in Lille, France, drawing on all of her influences in eight informed performances.
Shiraishi, Tamio
Moon
(Relative Pitch)
Known for his resonant solo alto saxophone work, often recording with the New York City subways, this album presents ten unusual duos between Tamio Shiraishi and improvisers on piano, voice, cello, electronics, bass, guitar and sax, with Tim Dahl, Steve Baczkowski, Mico, Mike Sidnam, Austin Sley Julian, Nina Dante, Tara Fenamore, Leila Bordreuil, Chris Libutti, and Ami Yamasaki.
Foster, Michael
The Industrious Tongue
(Relative Pitch)
It's not just the tongue that drives these compellingly irascible and unexpected sounds from the saxophone, augmented at times by samples and oscillators, as NY saxophonist Michael Foster applies technique beyond extended to a tenor and soprano saxophone, in two multi-part works of solo utterance: "Libidinal Fragments" in seven parts, and "Celluloid Nightmares" in two.
Grimal, Alexandra
Refuge
(Relative Pitch)
Recorded using the natural resonance from the base of a stone double spiral staircase in the Castle of Chambord, France, improvising soprano saxophonist Alexandra Grimal explores her own personal language and the affect the ambience brings to her adept playing, through beautifully melodic lines, long arpeggiations, or short bursts of penetrating utterance.
Koketsu, Masayo
Fukiya
(Relative Pitch)
An extended monologue on the alto saxophone from Tokyo-based Masayo Koketsu (Carrier/Koketsu/Fuwa/Itani), driven by an innate sense of timing to introduce assertive utterances, growls, throttling and intense interaction offset with long pauses, digressive asides and reflective moments, a remarkable album of modern free jazz in the Japanese tradition.
Lee, Robbie
Prismatist
(Relative Pitch)
With a history of both improvisation and rock, NY saxophonist and sound artist (Creature Automatic, Love As Laughter) concentrates on the sopranino saxophone in this solo album, performing acoustic feats of impressive technical skill, and on many tracks performing with tuning forks and live electronics, sequenced in a compelling journey of contrasts and wonder.
Lubelski, Samara
Partial Infinite Sequence
(Relative Pitch)
Performing solo on violin with surrounding effects that emphasize the dramatic tension in her extended sequences, Samara Lubelski presents two substantial journeys into the infinite, swirling in delays and reverb as her bow transitions from rapid up and down to long drawing and sustaining, pulling a variety of sounds that elate her listeners in spirals and eddies.
Johnson, Hermione
Tremble
(Relative Pitch)
Using an imaginative set of piano preparations, Auckland, New Zealand pianist Hermione Johnson draws unusual timbral and tonal qualities from the prepared piano, deftly improvising with dexterous technical skills to create unusual rhythmic and timbral environments, each a marvelous, miniature universe of unexpected voicings, evoking gongs, guitars, kotos, &c.
Mattrey, Joanna
Veiled
(Relative Pitch)
The first solo record for NY violist Joanna Mattrey, performing also on the Stroh violin, in a deep exploration of the sound possibilities for both instruments, using preparations to alter the resonance of the viola, masking its overtly singing and beautiful nature and allowing for unexpected and unusual textures which weave around melodic lines; unique and fascinating.
Urabe, Masayoshi
What Hasn't Come Here, COME!
(Relative Pitch)
An absolutely idiosyncratic style in performance, Japanese alto saxophonist Masayoshi Urabe, also on harmonica and voice, is heard in a single extended performance at Sakedelic Space Shuyukan in Shiga, Japan, as the listener experiences the performance through his playing, physical motion, aberrant racket, arduous utterance, and inexplicable moments of silence and sound.
Rogers, Erin
Dawntreader
(Relative Pitch)
Performing on saxophones and cymbal, the debut album from NY-based Canadian-American composer, saxophonist, and performance artist Erin Rogers uses multiphonics, vocalization, circular breathing, and inciting of outer resonance to add layers of complexity to her gripping improvisations, which she describes as "No electronics, no bandmates, no composers... just me + dark room + 2 saxophones".
Attias, Michael
Echos La Nuit
(Out Of Your Head Records)
A beautiful solo set of 12 improvisations, Michael Attias performing on alto sax with his left hand and piano with his right, captured in the natural reverberation of La Maison en Bois in Abeville-La-Riviere, France; surprisingly his 1st solo album, developed over 12 years yet played in under an hour with no retakes, a wonderful nuanced reflection in tone, melody & color.
Forebrace (Ward / Sassi / Horro / Doulton)
Steeped
(Relative Pitch)
Blending jazz and rock forms with frenetic excitement and masterful control, multi-reedist Forebrace quartet with Roberto Sassi (electric guitar), Santiago Horro (electric bass) and Jem Doulton (drums) run the gamut on exultantly virtuosic improvisation, here recording live at Cafe Oto.
Sikora, Catherine
Jersey
(Relative Pitch)
Irish-born New York based tenor saxophonist Catherine Sikora, know for her work with Eric Mingus, Hans-earl Park and Nick Didkovsky, in her first solo album, a strong release of passionate and informed free improv, 13 pieces revealing a unique and adept approach to the horn.
Alcorn, Susan
Soledad
(Relative Pitch)
Pedal Steel guitar innovator Susan Alcorn in a mostly solo release, beautifully performing 4 lush compositions by Astor Piazzolla, with bassist Michael Formanek joining for the Alcorn-penned "Suite for AHL".
Doneda, Michel
Everybody Digs Michel Doneda
(Relative Pitch)
A collection of solo pieces from forward-thinking French soprano saxophonist Michel Doneda, using extended techniques and utilizing every inch of the horn, creating unconventional and captivating sonic expressions from the instrument.
Metzger, Matthieu
SelfCooking
(Ayler)
A member of the French ONJ (Orchestre National de Jazz), saxophonist Metzger also works with a variety of real-time transformation music software; this is an excellent review of his compositions and his unique voice in modern improvisation.
Hetu, Joane
Seule dans les chants
(Ambiances Magnetiques)
Joane Hetu in her first solo album for alto saxophone and voice that is poetic and intimate.



Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:
Nebbia, Camila
Una Ofrenda A La Ausencia
(Relative Pitch)
Working in her native Buenos Aires, Argentina and in Berlin, tenor saxophonist Camila Nebbia (Habitable Records) presents sixteen succint, diverse and authoritative solo recordings captured in the studio in Bueno Aires, a mix of assertive harmonic statements and lyrical, often introspective works, at times narrating over her playing or adding effects.
Dorner, Axel / Allemano, Lina
Aphelia
(Relative Pitch)
Bringing together two exceptional trumpeters approaching their instruments in innovative ways--Berlin trumpeter Axel Dorner and Toronto trumpeter Lina Alleman--in duos and virtual ensembles, each of the eight improvisations titled for lesser-known, smaller celestial bodies, the album title referring to the furthest distance an object achieves while orbiting the sun.
Ghost, The Michael Foster's (Foster / Radichel / Sullivan)
Vanished Pleasures
(Relative Pitch)
Following NY saxophonist Michael Foster's interest in free jazz, noise and the pre-AIDS era of sexual freedom in the gay community, expressed in a sax-bass-drums trio with Philadelphia double bassist Jared Radichel and drummer Joey Sullivan, drawing on pre-composed structures, melodies, samples, and improvisation to reflect both the joy and anxiety of the queer experience.
Eberhard, Silke / Celine Voccia
Wild Knots
(Relative Pitch)
A sax & piano duo from German saxophonist Silke Eberhard and French pianist Céline Voccia, recording in the studio in Berlin as they draw from free jazz and contemporary compositional sources in quick-witted exchanges of powerful technique and creative drive, or contemplative environments of unusual concepts; an extremely well matched and complementary pair.
Glass Triangle (Zeena Parkins / Rasmussen / Sawyer)
Blue and Sun-lights
(Relative Pitch)
Recorded after a three-day series of concerts at New York City's venue The Stone, the trio of Zeena Parkins on electric harp & objects, Mette Rasmussen on saxophone, objects & voice and Ryan Sawyer on drums & objects brought their dynamic and far-ranging approach to collective free improv into Brooklyn's Figure 8 studio to capture these 10 extraordinary recordings.
Dietrichs (Camille Dietrich / Don Dietrich)
Catch the Leaves
(Relative Pitch)
Definitely of the Borbetomagus mold, the duo of tenor saxophonist Don Dietrich and cellist Camille Dietrich, his daughter who grew up under the influence of that band's relentlessly aggressive free jazz, here in a live performance at Tubby's in Kingston, New York for four burning improvisations that take apart a tree, leaving the audience to catch the fragments; terrifyingly intense!



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC