Francesco Massaro | Beppe Scardino | Danilo Gallo | Adolfo La Volpe | Giacomo Mongelli | Color Network | Aut Records

Color Network is conceived as a tribute to one of the leading characters in the international music scene: Ornette Coleman. What sets Col-(or Net)-work apart from the others that share the same intention is the choice to focus exclusively on one album, 1957’s “The Shape of Jazz to Come”, which is regarded as one of the texan saxophonist’s seminal works. Coleman’s compositions frame a musical environment that serves sometimes as point of departure and sometimes as landing place for reckless improvisations which explore unfamiliar acoustic regions. The sound resulting in the unusual combination of two baritone saxophones and electronics turns out to be surprisingly effective and constitutes the distintive feature of the music. The band that takes risks and assumes the task of merging some of the forms of free jazz and the search for atypical, contemporary sonorities into a fresh, colourful and autonomous musical statement. Continue reading

Giacomo Papetti | Emanuele Maniscalco | Gabriele Rubino | Small Choices | Aut Records

Small Choices focuses its research on contemporary improvised music, in constant relationship with the practice of composition – including original tunes as well as some personal re- interpretation of influent works from the 20th Century (Ligeti, Messiaen, Sibelius and Gershwin) – reaching a delicate balance between extemporariness and organization. In this scenario “small choices” become necessary in every moment. Strongly influenced by a certain “eccentricity” in contemporary art music and by the expressive power of jazz and free improvisation, this small ensemble expresses itself through an unpredictable and intimate interplay, searching for its own integrity and following its natural urges, easily crossing borders between musical genres. Continue reading

Andrea Laino | LAAND | Electrical Landscapes | Aut Records

Electrical Landscapes documents a solo research on electric guitar made by Andrea Laino for the project LAAND. The first part is an improvised session focused on timbric exploration in which sounds are generated through some non-conventional techniques and a few objects. All the audio materials have been recorded using an analog delay, a nail file, other objects and devices. No overdubs were added during the recording, except for track n.4. The second part is freely inspired by William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. Some of the readings recorded by Burroughs himself have been used, in connection with the cut-up technique made so popular by this author. The sound poetry dimension inspired Laino’s work and his radical improvised approach to the composition. Continue reading

Kongrosian | Bootstrap Paradox | Aut Records

The music of Kongrosian is free jazz or is it improvisational jazz? I think both terms will bring to mind complete freedom, which for a few may mean “lack of organization or direction”, which in their case is untrue. Bootstrap Paradox (Aut) is a collaborative effort between the trio and Oreste Sabadin, and together they make music with a small bit of foundation, but then they each have the freedom to go anywhere and everywhere with what they do. In fact, the group say they are “a trio + 1″, and the role of that +1 is open to anyone who wants to join them. I love the concept of music that is “in the making”, or at least music that sounds like it’s being assembled as you hear it. You may hear trumpets, saxophones, and a bass clarinet play an off-key melody, while another clarinet plays around and within that melody, only for another instrument to follow, which in turns follows something else. It’s like an onion unveiling new layers, and you’re not sure whether to enjoy the onion or keep peeling. That’s the joy of such pieces as “I’m A Strange Loop”, “Fractal Structure Of Revolutions”, and “No, sir, away! A papaya war is on!”, the words have no reason for being there and perhaps the sounds are the same. They don’t belong, but do because that’s how it’s combined, to create these reckless sounds that may make you want to join in and play. Bootstrap Paradox is an album that is far from lacking any direction, the fun is trying to compile the sounds and figure out what they’ll do next. I look forward to their next destination. — John Book Continue reading

Hanam Quintet feat. Tristan Honsinger | Aut Records

Hanam is a Berlin based quintet of musicians coming from different geographic areas: well know musicians like Horst Nonnenmacher (who has been part of the Improvisors poll, a group born to celebrate the collaboration between two jazz monsters as Alex Von Schlippenbach and Sam Rivers) and Alison Blunt (of various important collaborations and member of the London Improvisers orchestra that gathers, together with the Glasgow orchestra, the best of the avant-garde jazz of today in UK), joined here by the fresh possibilities of pianist Nikolai Menhold and two saxophonists, Anna Kaluza on alto sax and Manuel Miethe on soprano sax. Hanam is the perfect demonstration of how singularities can be sublimated: the interplay is the essential referring point where, in a sort of secret conduction, the musicians work on sharing energies. Each one knows how use their personal techniques to be part of a restless sound fluxus. You can easily feel it: look at their video recorded at the Vortex Jazz Club in London and appreciate their abilities and symbiosis. In this cd we find two different recordings: the Lumen Church one is a true hommage to contemporary music made by devoted to improvisation: a suite built on woodwinds overtones (Scelsi), opposed to extended percussive touches on piano and double bass (Berio) that seem to refer to the essential structures so connected to the contemporary composition strategies (Lachemann). In the other performance at the Collegium Hungaricum in Berlin, a two set concert, guest artist Tristan Honsinger, the premises are confirmed: great expression of this group, able to set a quality standard of the highest kind and to play a captivating chaos improvised music, thanks to a wise contrast/fragmentation playing, able to cause that neural involvement that only free improvisation can give. These sounds are imaginative, the instruments themselves seem to cause situations through their musicians: the idea is that of a special narration the goes through innocence and unpredictability of music. Something close to Alice in Wonderland adventures, an idea close to the famous cellist Tristan Honsinger who in his participation here joins his chamber instinct (especially in less dynamic phases) to his experimental side (feeding the transversality and the opposition to the mainstream use of the instrument). Highest level. — Review by Ettore Garzia Continue reading

Crisco 3 | You can never please anybody | Aut Records

We are glad to present as our third release a record made by three of the most representative new italian voices on saxophone. Bigoni, Bittolo Bon and Scardino are all members of El Gallo Rojo, a collective which produced many good releases during the last years. The album, the second one of our wind instruments series, is an explosive mix of original and complex themes, collective improvisation devoted to explore the timbre of the instruments and new interpretations of pieces, different by origins and content, like Twenty Years by Bill Frisell and Philosophy of the world by the weird rock group of The Shaggs. Continue reading

Aut Records

Aut Records is a record label dedicated to experimental and research music. We are trying to describe a musical environment that cannot be inscribed into a genre category, as well as distant from a particular musical language. Our main goal is to promote projects concerning unusual sonorities. We are convinced that any positive result derives from a research off the beaten tracks, deviations from the mainstream, which is often a sterile environment if conceived as the only possible solution. Basically, we offer what we, actually, appreciated while listening to it; further, we really enjoy the pleasure to make our products available to anyone appreciating our work, that is as important as games are. Continue reading