The Convergence Quartet | Owl Jacket | No Business Records

The Convergence Quartet Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet), Harris Eisenstadt (drums), Alexander Hawkins (piano), and Dominic Lash (double bass) brings together four leaders of a generation of composer improvisers who draw on a deep range of influences and traditions in their music. All established bandleaders in their own right, the band’s credits also include work, both live and on record, with many seminal names in contemporary jazz: Anthony Braxton, John Butcher, Joe McPhee, Louis Moholo Moholo, Evan Parker, Mulatu Astatke, Sam Rivers, and Cecil Taylor, to name only a few. Through many hours on the road and in rehearsal, the group have forged their many and varied musical experiences into a uniquely innovative and coherent language, offering as a result a ‘powerful example of 21st-century musical catholicity’ (John Fordham, The Guardian) and ‘moments of magical innovation’ (Paul Medley, The Oxford Times). Continue reading

Kaze | Uminari | Libra Records

Recorded at Studio Sequenza, Montreuil – France, on December 9 – 2014 by Thomas Vingtrnier, assistant Thomas Rasoanaivo. Mixed by Peter Orins in January 2015. CD master by Mike Marciano at Systems Two, New York. Cover photo by Julie Merckling. Band photo by Nodoka Ishida. Cover design and layout by Peter Orins. Produced by Circum-Disc and Libra Records. Continue reading

Satoko Fujii Tobira | Yamiyo Ni Karasu | Libra Records

The Satoko Fujii New Trio (Fujii-Nicholson-Itani) released its debut CD, “Spring Storm” in 2013. Since then, we have performed throughout Japan, Europe and North America. Sometimes Natsuki Tamura joined the trio as a guest artist. He brought energy and humor, so the band had more color. So I decided to change the band name from “New Trio” to “Tobira.” “Tobira” means door in Japanese. I wanted to open the door to bring some fresh air to the music and keep it from becoming closed. I wrote the music on paper and this band made it sound so alive. They know which spices to use. I am so lucky to always can get such great collaborators. I really like our music which is full of energy and hope you also enjoy it. — Satoko Fujii Continue reading

Satoko Fujii Orchestra Berlin | Ichigo Ichie | Libra Records

Orchestra Berlin In January 2014, we had an unusually warm winter in Berlin. The exception was the three days that we had the concert and recording for this project. We could see the diamond dust that night and it showed how cold it was. Fujii, who’s been living in Berlin since 2011, started the orchestra project there after founding orchestras in four other cities: New York, Tokyo, Nagoya and Kobe. Fujii had written “Ichigo Ichie” to perform at the Chicago Jazz Festival and wanted to record it in Berlin with the musicians she’d met there. — Natsuki Tamura Continue reading

Aldo Clementi | For Saxophones | Amirani Records

Aldo Clementi has been a central figure for the evolution of European New Music since the Fifties. A student of Alfredo Sangiorgi and Goffredo Petrassi, he began to build his own identity as a composer starting from post-Webem serialism coordinates, by elaborating the influence of both attending Darmstadt and acquiring technical skills thanks to the relationship with Bruno Madema. Deeply influenced by contemporary painting (especially by the “informal” art of Fautrier, Tapies, Tobey and Burri, but also by Perilli’s and Dorazio’s works), and by the relationship with John Cage (with whom he shared the passion for chess), Clementi has achieved, since the early Sixties, his own aesthetic, gradually shifting from the structuralist categories to a personal dimension and style. Since the Informel cycle, Clementi’s works feature complex and rigorous contrapuntal textures, resulting from graphic processes and designed to dissolve internal dialectics by saturating the sonic space. Continue reading

Dario Palermo | Difference Engines | Amirani Records

The way Dario Palermo deals with formal structures and different expressive grounds, complexity and a peculiar taste for a refined primitive touch is really remarkable. All three compositions here have been conceived as a multi-perspective field of artistic investigation: Dario Palermo RO-Premiére danse de la Lune, featuring a superb interpretation by percussionist Milo Tamez, is an astounding journey through the hybridization process of single percussive voices with electroacoustic treatments, emphasized frequencies, polyrhythmic mazes, generating a sonic organism in which ancestral and future sounds dance a beautiful interaction. Performed by the world-wide prized Arditti String Quartet and by brilliant mezzo-soprano Catherine Carter, the composition Difference Engine delivers a single movement in which several areas fluidly melt in a complex process of metamorphosis. Tasty subtleness, extremely accurate attention to detail, together with a skilled overall compositional vision, build up a macro-object that clearly reveal Palermo’s attitude to complexity and generative compositional method. A great piece. In TRANCE, biological and physical vocal characteristics, and pure singing vocal aspects, are subject-objects (material) of the work, paired in a constant fluctuant correspondence, which structure the shape and form of the work . The central role is played here by vocalist Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg whose journey in phonemes, polysyllables and physical vocal flexibilities find a perfect partner in real time electronic treatment. Continue reading

Jim Franklin | Hubert Bergmann | Journey of Simurgh | Mudoks Record

EVEN IF IN MY GAMES I HAVE SOMETIMES WON AND SOMETIMES LOST IN THE END I THREW EVERYTHING INTO THE BLACK WATER. I HAVE BEEN WIPED AWAY, I’VE DISSAPEARED, NOTHING IS LEFT OF ME. I WAS ONLY A SHADOW, NOT THE SMALLEST PARTICLE OF DUST REMAINED OF ME. I WAS A DROPLET, LOST IN THE OCEAN OF MYSTERY, AND NOW I CAN NO LONGER EVEN FIND THIS DROPLET. — Farideddin Attar Neyshapun Continue reading