The Squid's Ear Magazine


Fire! Orchestra / Krzysztof Penderecki: Actions [VINYL] (Rune Grammofon)

"Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra" was originally written by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki for the New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra, assembled by Don Cherry for the occasion and conducted by composer himself; this new extended reading and conduction of the score from 2018 was originated and directed by Mats Gustafsson, a powerful update and expansion of the original work.
 

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Personnel:



Anna Hogberg-alto saxophone

Mats Gustafsson-baritone saxophone, conductor

Christer Bothen-bass clarinet

Krzysztof Penderecki-composer

Elsa Bergman-double bass

Andreas Werliin-drums

Torbjorn Zetterberg-electric bass

Alexander Zethson-electric organ

Reine Fiske-guitar

Per Texas Johansson-tenor saxophone, clarinet, flute

Maria Bertel-trombone

Goran Kajfes-trumpet

Niklas Barno-trumpet

Susana Santos Silva-trumpet

Per Ake Holmlander-tuba


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UPC: 7033660032121

Label: Rune Grammofon
Catalog ID: RLP 3212LP
Squidco Product Code: 28725

Format: LP
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: Norway
Packaging: LP
Recorded at Muzeum Inzynierii Miejskiej, in Cracow, Poland, on September 11th, 2018, by Mietek Felecki.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Original score by Krzysztof Penderecki. New reading and conduction by Mats Gustafsson. The first (and until now only?) recorded interpretation of Krzysztof Penderecki's Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra took place in 1971 at Donaueschingen and featured the New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra, assembled by Don Cherry for the occasion and conducted by the great Polish composer. That orchestra also consisted of 14 musicians, including international jazz heavyweights such as Kenny Wheeler, Peter Brotzmann, Thomasz Stanko, Terje Rypdal, Han Bennink, and others. Don Cherry himself did not perform. Penderecki had heard the Globe Unity Orchestra a couple of years earlier and was fascinated by the possibilities of working with musicians from a different background and with other perspectives than he was used to from the classical world. The challenge for all involved was to find the right balance between composition and improvisation. The idea was initially met with some skepticism from the musicians, but this soon gave way to acceptance and even eagerness.

The new, extended reading by Mats Gustafsson and Fire! Orchestra was commissioned by the Sacrum Profanum festival in Krakow, Poland in 2018. The idea was to place this classic piece in a contemporary setting, with a new approach and a new body of sound. However, the original score was used as a platform for the new reading, connecting history with the present. A score in this context is most often of a graphic nature to present reference points, visualized on the sleeve by Kim Hiorthy's cut-up adaptation of Mats Gustafsson's score. It's also worth noticing that the instrumentation is more or less identical to that of 1971, the main difference being a tuba replacing one of the trombones. Finally, this new reading clocks in at 40 minutes, and is thus considerably longer than the 1971 version. This line-up of the Fire! Orchestra is unique in that it's the first time without founding members and singers Mariam Wallentin and Sofia Jernberg. It's also the first time with guitarist Reine Fiske."-Rune Grammofon

Also available on CD.

Artist Biographies

Anna Högberg is a saxophonist, a member of Dog Life, Fire! Orchestra

-Squidco 3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
"Born 1964 in Umeå, Northern Sweden.Saxplayer, improviser and composer. Solo artist and international tours and projects with a.o. Sonic Youth, Merzbow, Jim O´Rourke, Barry Guy, Otomo Yoshihide, Yoshimi, Ken Vandermark and in working groups The Thing, FIRE!, Gush, Boots Brown, Swedish Azz and Fake (the facts). Large ensemble work with Barry Guy New Orchestra,FIRE! Orchestra and the NU - ensemble.over 1800 concerts and over 200 record productions in Europe, Australia, Africa, North & South America and Asia.Collaborations with contemporary dance, theater, art, poetry as well as projects with noise, electronica, contemporary rock and free jazz.Discaholic - running the discaholic corner website.Producer of international festivals and concert tours as well as work with own record labels Slottet, OlofBright Editions and Blue Tower Records."-Mats Gustafsson Website (http://matsgus.com/archives/category/bio)
3/25/2024

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"Christer Bothén born 1941 in Gothenburg, based in Stockholm, Sweden. Composer, musician and artist. His main instruments are bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, donso n'goni and guimbri. Bothén spent 1971 - 72 in Mali, where he studied hunter's music and donso n'goni with master Broema Dombia in Bougouni, Wassoulut. In 1977 he took up gnawa music studies with master Maalem Abdellatif Elmakhzoumi in Marrakech, who he studied with until the master passed away in 2017. From 1970 onwards, Bothén collaborated with Don Cherry, and he also taught Cherry the donso n'goni. In 1980 Bothén started Bolon Bata, a band that toured intensively, performing Bothéns compositions. Its members included Bosse Skoglund, Marianne N'Lemvo and Ulf Lindén. Later the band became Bolon X, adding band members Morgan Ågren and Rafael Sida. From 1990 onwards, Bothén has continued leading his own groups, and has also collaborated frequently with multi-reedist Mats Gustafsson, performance artist and musician Sara Lundén and cornetist Goran Kajfeš."

-Thanatosis (https://thanatosis.org/christer-bothn)
3/25/2024

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"Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki (Polish: [ˈkʂɨʂtɔf pɛndɛˈrɛt͡skʲi]; 23 November 1933 - 29 March 2020) was a Polish composer and conductor. Among his best known works are Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, Symphony No. 3, his St. Luke Passion, Polish Requiem, Anaklasis and Utrenja. Penderecki composed four operas, eight symphonies and other orchestral pieces, a variety of instrumental concertos, choral settings of mainly religious texts, as well as chamber and instrumental works.

Born in Dębica to a lawyer, Penderecki studied music at Jagiellonian University and the Academy of Music in Kraków. After graduating from the Academy, he became a teacher there and began his career as a composer in 1959 during the Warsaw Autumn festival. His Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra and the choral work St. Luke Passion have received popular acclaim. His first opera, The Devils of Loudun, was not immediately successful. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Penderecki's composing style changed, with his first violin concerto focusing on the semitone and the tritone. His choral work Polish Requiem was written in the 1980s and expanded in 1993 and 2005.

Penderecki won many prestigious awards, including the Prix Italia in 1967 and 1968; four Grammy Awards in 1987, 1998 (twice), and 2017; the Wolf Prize in Arts in 1987; and the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 1992. In 2012, Sean Michaels of The Guardian called him "arguably Poland's greatest living composer". "

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krzysztof_Penderecki)
3/25/2024

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

Elsa Bergman is a Stockholm, Sweden-based double bass-player working in free jazz and improvised music. She plays in the free jazz sextet "Anna Högberg Attack", who have released and album on Swedish label Omlott. She is also a member of the high-energy improv quartet "Festen" whose debut albumwas on the Portuguese label Clean Feed. She leads her own quartet "Elsas Eget Omdöme", and is a member of Fire! Orchestra, Golden Offence Orchestra, Hästköttskandalen, Motståndsorkestern Version 1.

-Squidco 3/25/2024

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"Andreas Werliin (* 1982 ) is a Swedish drummer of creative jazz and new improvisational music .

Werliin, who grew up in Strömstad , studied at the Academy of Music and Drama in Gothenburg. There he met his wife, Mariam Wallentin , with whom he formed the duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums . The band presented several albums since 2007 and toured internationally, in 2008 it was awarded the Swedish Jazzact of the Year.

With Mats Gustafsson and Johan Berthling he formed the trio Fire! , Who went to Japantournee with Jim O'Rourke in 2010, and since 2013 for now (2016) four albums to the large format Fire! Orchestra. In 2010, Dan Berglund got him to his Tonbruket project, which then became a collaborative band, which was awarded the Gyllene Skivan in 2012 and the Jazzkattan in 2016."

-Wikipedia translated by Google (https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Werliin&prev=search)
3/25/2024

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"Torbjörn Zetterberg (born 10 May 1976) is a Swedish jazz musician (double bass) and composer, known from collaborations with Jonas Kullhammar.

Zetterberg attended Södra Latin och Fridhems Folkhögskola in Svalöv but was first recognised as bassist when he studied at Kungliga Musikhögskolan in Stockholm still very young. Here he studied bass under guidance of Jan Adefelt. Soon he joined drummer Fredrik Norén's band together with the saxophonist Jonas Kullhammar. Already at this point one could sense that he would become a prominent figure in the Swedish jazz scene. Now his name is firmly rooted in the vibrant progressive selection as the new jazz generation.

He went through a personal crisis and did not record as a bandleader for more than seven years. Zetterberg was uncomfortable with his career and in 2010 he decided to leave the urban life including his bass, and moved to a Buddhist temple. There he resided for a year and still spends half of his time there in 2016. This existential crisis led to the production of the album Och Den Stora Frågan ("And the Big Question" in Swedish) in 2014. Here he collaborated with well known musicians from his earlier career, like the Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva and drummer Jon Fält, known from albums with pianist Bobo Stenson's trio. The album is "charged with joyful urgency, shiny optimism and confident flowing energy, despite the doubts and uncertainties that accompany any creative, artistic process", the reporter of All About Jazz stated in 2014."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torbj%C3%B6rn_Zetterberg)
3/25/2024

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

"Alexander Zethson has completed the bachelor performance programme in jazz at KMH and is currently studying at the second year of the master's programme with Lisa Ullén as his primary instrument teacher.

Alexander has participated in extensive concert and tour activities and has participated in fifteen record productions. The ensembles include:

• Niklas Barnö's free jazz group Je Suis!• A number of tours in Europe with Martin Küchen's group Angles 9

Alexander is also active as arranger and pianist in collaboration with the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, a cooperation which began in 2011. Zethson, Sofia Jernberg and Lene Grenager has arranged music from Hallingdal and Røros performed by the TJO with Zethson, Jernberg and violinist/Hardanger fiddler Olav Luksengård Mjelva."

-KMH Royal College of Music in Stockholm (https://www.kmh.se/alexander-zethson-received-the-rosenborg-gehrmans-scholarship)
3/25/2024

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"Nils Reine Fiske (born 4 October 1972 in Saltsjö-Boo, Sweden) is a Swedish guitarist, art director and sound engineer at the record label Subliminal Sounds, who put his signature to many prog-rock project such as Landberk, Morte Macabre, Paatos, Motorpsycho, Elephant9, and Träd, Gräs & Stenar, but is best known for his playing in the band Dungen.

Fiske is currently playing in The Amazing with Christopher Gunrup, but has also played with the band Reform, and is a member of Sylvester Schlegel's band The Guild, in addition to those already mentioned. In 2012 he has released two albums, one with the band Svenska Kaputt which in addition to Fiske is constituted by Jonas Kullhammar, Torbjörn Zetterberg and Johan Holmegard, Still Life With Eggplant and Behind the Sun with the Norwegian prog-rock band Motorpsycho, and Atlantis with another Norwegian prog-rock band Elephant9, comprising the trio Ståle Storløkken, Nikolai Eilertsen and Torstein Lofthus. The latter appeared at Kongsberg Jazz Festival 2012. He is currently a member of Träd, Gräs & Stenar."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reine_Fiske)
3/25/2024

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

"Per "Texas" Johansson

Bold as brass! How else can one describe Per 'Texas' Johansson's music? With a wide-open mind he mixes whatever, whenever. He lets styles and moods come and go, while his attack remains as bold as brass.

In "Farornas hav" he and his comrade-in-arms Fredrik Ljungkvist rush to the fore - of what could be pure blues-rock, if it weren't that the instruments and playing style don't really fit. In the title piece for his second CD, Alla mina kompisar (All my pals) he invokes the excursions on paper-brittle night ice characteristic of free, piano-less jazz. Then he turns to Jan Johansson's sleepily bluesy Blues i oktaver (Blues in octaves) and emphasizes the carefully considered, audacious intervals with an indolently growling energy.

Per 'Texas' Johansson switches from tenor sax to clarinet and on to bass clarinet as easily as he changes style and mood. He places himself centre stage with a natural authority which nevertheless lets his fellow musicians - saxophonist Fredrik Ljungkvist, bassist Dan Berglund and drummer Mikel Ulfberg - compete on the same terms.

This technique makes Per 'Texas' Johansson's music generous and outgoing. And bold as brass!"-Johan Scherwin, Translation: Sven H.E. Borei

-Svensk Musik (http://www.mic.se/avd/mic/prod/micv6eng.nsf/DocsByCodename/single_object!opendocument&external=http://www.mic.se/avd/mic/prod/personer.nsf/WebV6BiografierAOEng/3088D052B464699C412566040040DD74)
3/25/2024

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

"Maria Bertel (born 1980) Danish based trombone player and composer. She is working with sound structures and improvisation, amplified as well as acoustic. Maria is one of five co-founders of the art collective Eget værelse (egetvaerelse.dk). Her solo project Ymers Pizza is a study in amplified trombone, and synth.She is currently composing for and playing in the bands G.E.K with Johannes Lund (sax), The Big Yes with Anna Högberg (sax), Ole Morfjel (drums) and Christian Maaes Svensen (bass), in a duo with French guitarist Nina Garcia and various other event-based projects."

-Ausland (https://ausland-berlin.de/maria-bertel)
3/25/2024

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

"Goran Kajfes, born 22 June 1970 in Tyreso Assembly, is a Swedish trumpeter. Kajfeš is the son of Davor Kajfeš.

Goran has worked with, among others, Eric Gadd, Stina Nordenstam, Fläskkvartetten, Kent, The Tiny, Bruno K. Öijer, Neneh Cherry, Robyn, Mando Diao, Lester Bowie, Blacknuss, Sugababes, Nicolai Dunger, Håkan Hellström, Janet Jackson, Moneybrother, Freddie Wadling, José González, The Soundtrack of Our Lives, Eric Malmberg, Club Killers, Monica Zetterlund, Eagle-Eye Cherry, Eldkvarn, Matti Bye and Bo Diddley, The Thing XL, weeping willows, Cheik Lo.

Solo debut Home (2000) was released on the EMI (Kaza / Blue Note) and a lot of attention for his mix of jazz and electronics. Sequel HeadSpin won a Grammy (2004). The third album, X / Y (2010) was nominated for this year's jazz album in The Independent, and was hailed around the world including magazine Mojo. He was also awarded the Nordic Music Prize for the disc. After the album was released (with his Subtropic Arkestra) The Reason Why Vol.1 (2012) and most recently, The Reason Why Vol. 2 (2014). Both featured in Mojo, Uncut, Songlines, The Wire, Jazz Journal and so on.

Kajfeš is also featured in the jazz group Oddjob, together with among others Per "Ruskträsk" Johansson and Daniel Karlsson, who has released six full-length albums (Amigo Music, ACT, Headspin Recordings) and beyond that also Grammy Award winning children's album Jazzoo. He is also a member of the free jazz band Nacka Forum (Moserobie Records) with Kjell Nordeson, Jonas Kullhammar and Johan Berthling, Angles 9, Fire! Orchestra, Magnus Carlson & The Moon Ray Quintet and skabandet Jobalites.

He runs the record company Headspin Recordings, with David Österberg.

Kajfeš has also composed music for films and television series including Kristian Petri's The Well documentaries and feature films Details, The Mouse of Bigert Bergstrom, The Sun of Ulf Rollof, vignette music to the SVT Cobra, All wild, a film about Birgitta Stenberg, Havana Motor Club by Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt. He has written and performed music for Saw The White Buffalo Dancing with dance group Vindhäxor.

Oddjob The group performed a large part of the music (composed by Matti Bye) to the hundred year old who climbed out the window and disappeared.

Kajfeš produced weeping willows albums The Time Has Come, Magnus Carlson and the Moon Ray quintet and most of Titiyos album Hidden.

In 2014 asked Kajfeš in collaboration with David Osterberg audio installation Batysphere on Färgfabriken."

-Wikipedia translated by Google (https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goran_Kajfe )
3/25/2024

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"Niklas Barnö

Probably the best trumpeter player from Sweden.

Best, just simply because he is the musician most far away from defining something with being best, or worse for that part.

Pure honesty, in its best way. Or worse way. As honest is neither good or bad.

Niklas is. And is becoming.

Niklas is human. This is heard in his playing; the haunting crescendo of thoughts, spanning over 50.000 years, blown out through the mouthpiece of his trumpet.

Why? What? Who? How? Now?

He is his own foghorn (Mistlur). Clearing out the dim and artificial with ignited instinct.

He is the leader of the herd of musicians, Je Suis!. And active in groups like Kege Snö, Snus, Se&Hör...

Niklas Barnö and Joel Grip has known each other since they learned how to crawl musically and have been crucial for the development of their music as heard playing together as well as in the music organized together; Umlaut Records Sweden and unique festival Hagenfesten in Dala-Floda."

-Umlaut Records (http://www.umlautrecords.com/people/niklas-barno/)
3/25/2024

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"Susana Santos Silva is a trumpeter, improviser and composer from Porto, Portugal.

She holds a Master Diploma in Jazz Performance '2010 from Codarts, Rotterdam, where she worked with Eric Vloeimans, Jarmo Hoogendijk and Wim Both.

She holds a Graduate Diploma in Jazz/Trumpet '2008 and in Trumpet '2004 from College of Music and Performing Arts in Porto, attending the last year of the course at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe in the class of Prof. Reinhold Friedrich, where she also had baroque trumpet lessons with Prof. Edward Tarr.

She is a member and co-founder of the Porto based jazz musicians association Porta-Jazz and it's label, Carimbo. 
With Coreto, an ensemble of musicians from this association led by João Pedro Brandão, she recorded in 2012 the first album of the label, 'Aljamia'. Two more were released after that, 'Mergulho' and 'Sem Chão'.

In 2011 she releases her first album as a leader of her own Quintet, 'Devil´s Dress' on Tone of a Pitch Records. With this band she played 12 Points Jazz Festival, Dublin in 2011. In 2015 she releases her second album as a leader, 'Impermanence' on Carimbo Porta-Jazz. Life and Other Transient Storms, her new project with Lotte Anker, Sten Sandell, Torbjörn Zetterberg and Jon Falt, premiered last year at Tampere jazz Happening and their new album is now out on Clean Feed Records.

Her other main projects include LAMA, a Rotterdam based trio with portuguese bassist Gonçalo Almeida and canadian drummer Greg Smith, 'Oneiros' (2011), 'Lamaçal' (2013) feat. Chris Speed and 'The Elephant's Journey' feat. Joachim Badenhorst (2015), all released on Clean Feed Records, a duo with swedish bassist Torbjörn Zetterberg, 'Almost Tomorrow' Clean Feed 2013, a duo with the slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler 'This Love' Clean Feed 2015, a duo with drummer Jorge Queijo 'Songs from my Backyard' Wasser Bassin 2013, a collaboration with the belgian trio De Beren Gieren, 'The Detour Fish' Clean Feed 2014, a trio with Torbjörn Zetterberg and the swedish organist Hampus Lindwall 'If Nothing Else' Clean Feed 2015 and a quartet with Christine Wodrascka, Christian Meaas Svendsen and Håkon Berre, 'Rasengan!' (Barefoot Records 2016).

She is also part of João Guimarães Octet, 'Zero' Toap 2014, Torbjörn Zetterberg 'Och Den Stora Frågan' Moserobie 2014, 'Om Liv & Död' Moserobie 2015, and Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos, with whom she played and recorded with musicians as Lee Konitz, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Chris Cheek, Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, Maria Schneider, among many others.

She was a member of the European Movement Jazz Orchestra, with whom she played in Germany, Slovenia, Austria, Belgium, Portugal and Egipt. The orchestra recorded 'EMJO Live at Coimbra', released in 2011 on Clean Feed Records."

-Susana Santos Silva Website (https://susanasantossilva.com/bio/)
3/25/2024

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"Per-Åke Holmlander...

...born in 1957 in Skellefteå in the very north of Sweden. Holmlander received his diploma in classical tuba in 1983 at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm with Michael Lind as a teacher. Holmlander has always worked simultaneously with improvisation, jazz and rock music as well as classical and contemporary music.

As an improviser Holmlander has worked with - Eje Thelin, Marilyn Crispell, Paul Lovens, Folke Rabe, Phil Minton, Sten Sandell, Sven-Åke Johansson, Mats Persson, Gunter Christmann, Kjell Westling, Keith Rowe, Jan Allan, Georg Riedel, Position Alpha, DJustable, Jon Vanderlander Trio, The Swedish Radio Jazz Group, Ken Vandermark - Territory Band & Resonance Ensemble, The Frontroom Ensemble, London Jazz Composers Orchestra, Torden Kvartetten & Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet...among many others.

Holmlander works a lot with theatre music, sometimes he plays solo and he regularly works with Fire! Orchestra, Paal Nilssen-Love Large Unit, Barry Guy New Orchestra, Fredrik Ljungkvist and his Yun Kan 5 & 10 and recently with Parti&Minut, Swedish azz, Inner Ear & Mats Gustafsson NU-Ensemble.

Per-Åke has participated in more than 100 records and 1800 theatrical performances. He has given concerts in 38 countries and he is since December 2008 a member of the government run - Musikalliansen."

-Carliot.Org (http://carliot.org/)
3/25/2024

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


Track Listing:



SIDE A



1. Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra, part 1 (20:26)

SIDE B



1. Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra, part 2 (19:38)

Related Categories of Interest:


Vinyl Recordings
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Jazz
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Large Ensembles
Mats Gustafsson
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Their Power Reached Across Space And Time-To Defy Them Was Death-Or Worse [VINYL + DOWNLOAD]
(Thrill Jockey)
Black Vinyl - Expanding on their decade-long collaboration with albums on Astral Spirits, Bocian and Confront (Ensemble Var), and both members of Fire! Orchestra, sound artist Joachim Nordwall on analog synth and tapes and reed & wind player Mats Gustafsson use extended approaches to their instruments through effects and close mic-ing to create powerful and hallucinatory sound worlds.
Gustafsson, Mats / Joachim Nordwall
Their Power Reached Across Space And Time-To Defy Them Was Death-Or Worse
(Thrill Jockey)
Expanding on their decade-long collaboration with albums on Astral Spirits, Bocian and Confront (Ensemble Var), and both members of Fire! Orchestra, sound artist Joachim Nordwall on analog synth and tapes and reed & wind player Mats Gustafsson use extended approaches to their instruments through effects and close mic-ing to create powerful and hallucinatory sound worlds.
Aldrig, Ljug
Stabbings / Juiced [7'' VINYL + DOWNLOAD]
(thanatosis produktion)
Ljug Aldrig, aka Roosen, a visual artist, guitarist and vocalist from Stockholm, is heard in a 2-song 7" + download release performing with Dennis Egberth on drums, Alexander Zethson on keys, Anton Toorell on bass, guitars and Isak Hedtjarn on saxophone.
Large Unit (Paal Nilssen-Love)
Clusterfuck
(PNL)
One of a pair of albums--New Map and Clusterfuck--recorded in the studio in Oslo, Norway by percussionist and composer Paal Nilssen-Love's Large Unit, a 15-piece, incredibly flexible and open-minded ensemble, here improvising over a work of graphic notation where the composed structures are balanced with blocks of improvisation, allowing for quick dynamic shifts in direction.
Large Unit (Paal Nilssen-Love)
New Map
(PNL)
One of a pair of albums--New Map and Clusterfuck--recorded in the studio in Oslo, Norway by percussionist and composer Paal Nilssen-Love's Large Unit, a 15-piece, incredibly flexible and open-minded ensemble, here performing a work where the improvisers are provided with a series of open-form "cells"--concrete ideas, notes and directions--to which they must respond.
Guy, Barry and Friends
Krakow 2018 [5 CD BOX SET]
(Not Two)
Two days of concerts in 2018 at Alchemia Club, in Krakow, Poland and a recording at Radio Krakow the next day from English composer, band leader and a bass player Barry Guy, in varying configurations at Alchemia of duos & trios with some of Europe & The UK's leading improvisers, culminating in an 11-piece ensemble at Radio Krakow performing the large work "For To End Yet Again".
Gustafsson, Mats
Naja (Black Cross Solo Sessions 5)
(Corbett vs. Dempsey)
For three days in his own Discaholic Studios in Nickelsdorf, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson recorded the playing-card pieces of Peter Brötzmann--compositional prompts intended for a large group or for solo playing--performing on a cross-section of the saxophone family from sopranino to bass, and also one piece for saxophone mouthpiece, creating a set of stunning improvisations.
Frith, Fred / Susana Santos Silva
Laying Demons To Rest
(RogueArt)
An evocative album of sublime improvisation between guitarist Fred Frith and trumpeter Susana Santo Silva, recorded live for France Musique/Radio France at Motoco, Mulhouse as part of Festival Météo in 2021, the two inspiring remarkable force and assertive direction in a darkly spirited conversation of deep introspection and cathartic exorcism; magnificent!
VO (Zethson / Hogberg / Berthling / Sander)
The Sounds Of VO [2 CDS]
(thanatosis produktion)
A rare mix of collective and chamber approaches to free improvisation from the Swedish sextet VÖ of Eva Lindal on violin, Anna Hogberg on alto saxophone, Johan Berthling on double bass, Leo Svensson Sander on cello, Alexander Zethson on piano & pump organ and Giannis Arapis on acoustic guitar, performing deeply introspective conversations that explore modernity and tradition.
Ahanes (Kokkoli / Arapis / Aleklint / Zethson / Zetterberg / Agnas)
Petrichor
(Clean Feed)
Stockholm pianist Alexander Zethson invited Greek saxophonist Nicky Kokkoli and guitarist Giannis Arapis to take part in his 13-piece Thanatosis festival ensemble VÖ; they then asked drummer Nils Agnas, bassist Torbjörn Zetterberg and trombonist Mats Äleklint to join them for this sublimely flowing sextet studio session, which includes works by Mingus and Coltrane.
O'Rourke, Jim / Mats Gustafsson
Xylophonen Virtuosen [VINYL 2 LPs]
(Trost Records)
Dedicated to Derek Bailey, these long out of print, subtle and delicate duo recordings captured in Chicago between Mats Gustafsson on tenor sax, fluteophone, flute & "junk" and Jim O'Rourke on guitar, accordeon and also on "junk", were originally released in 1999 on the Incus label, here remastered, in some cases remixed, and adding previously unreleased material.
O'Rourke, Jim / Mats Gustafsson
Xylophonen Virtuosen
(Trost Records)
Dedicated to Derek Bailey, these long out of print, subtle and delicate duo recordings captured in Chicago between Mats Gustafsson on tenor sax, fluteophone, flute & "junk" and Jim O'Rourke on guitar, accordeon and also on "junk", were originally released in 1999 on the Incus label, here remastered, in some cases remixed, and adding previously unreleased material.
Angles
A Muted Reality
(Clean Feed)
The chameleonic configuration of Angles is here an octet, in a powerfully building and passionate set of three recordings performed by Martin Kuchen (alto sax), Magnus Broo & Goran Kajfes (trumpets), Mats Aleklint (trombone), Mattias Stahl (vibraphone), Alexander Zethson (piano & synth), Konrad Agnas (drums) and Johan Berthling (double bass); exemplary.
Talp, Linnea
Arch Of Motion [VINYL]
(thanatosis produktion)
Performed with Stockholm musicians including pianist Alexander Zethson, wind player Martin Küchen and trombonist Mats Äleklint, organist Linnéa Talp explores the areas of sound that emulate breathing, push/pull or back & forth motion, in eight beautifully paced recordings led by the organ's rich and microtonal vibrations & timbre and imbued by the contributor's subtle additions.



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

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