Rossbin The meeting of Tim Hodgkinson (B-flat clarinet) and Milo Fine (“junior” drums, B-flat clarinet, piano and a little shouting towards the end) occurred at the latter’s house in an afternoon of 2007, their only moment of freedom from a festival in which Hodgkinson was performing as a member of a participating ensemble. The paragraph [...]

Edgetone “Dedicated to people and everyone else”. Good man, Thollem McDonas, refusing to limit the extent of his music to selected members of the human race to embrace everybody. The same feeling of all-inclusiveness is given by this solo CD, subdivided in three episodes recorded in California and Italy, the first of which constituted a [...]

Humming Conch On paper, Quartet For Instruments is an interesting effort, conceived by Tomas Phillips by recording snippets of improvisations on piano, clarinet, minimal electronics and treated cello. In truth, it is at one and the same time sparsely austere and perplexing. There are in fact questions to be raised about the effectiveness of some [...]

Ftarri Active since 2000 as a duo, surely clarinettists Kai Fagaschinski and Michael Thieke are not interested in confrontation at all costs. Still, this CD – their second as The International Nothing – makes me wonder about that kind of attitude and vibe, despite the overall feel of detachment characterizing the music. This probably depends [...]

Erstwhile Communication, confidence, intensity and reciprocity. These are the words that my imagination suggested while listening to this exquisitely unselfish, insightful offer by Stangl (guitars, electronics, piano, vibraphone) and Fagaschinski (clarinet, piano, acoustic guitar). It’s a work whose deceiving fragility reveals large doses of acuity, informed as it is by precise constructions, minimalist nuances and [...]

Moving Furniture Miguel Angel Tolosa’s music navigates the large estuary where the waters of drones, field recordings and intelligent looping generate dangerous undercurrents. Rarely – make that “never” – you’ll be able to deem one of his albums as under-average, every sound carefully positioned and sensibly left to increase a composition’s value in mixes that [...]

A personal statement first. Celer belongs amidst the infrequent entities worthy of being regularly followed in the field of next-to-inert electronica (formerly known as “ambient”, but let’s not limit ourselves: this is valid for a lot of musical varieties). Will Long – as was his late wife Dani Baquet-Long – is a solid human specimen, [...]

Solstice Incredibly for an artist as busily eclectic as Asano, Galaxies marks the return of a CD release of his since 2006, year of the excellent Oboe Trio No.1-No.3. This shows how time indeed flies remorselessly. To perplex even further, the man is back with nothing less than a full hour of sheer field recordings; [...]

Mudoks No need to restate who Mary Halvorson is, but hearing pianist Hubert Bergmann at work was a premiere for this reviewer; a satisfying first meeting, to be sure. The improvised set, lasting less than half a hour, was taped in a single afternoon; despite the swift agreement, this recording – the lone time in [...]

Another Timbre Six pieces for piano. Five were penned by Terry Jennings and performed by Tilbury alone, the sixth is a version of John Cage’s “Electronic Music For Piano” where the manual effort is enhanced – and even mangled – by Lexer’s electronics. I must admit of not being extremely familiar with Jennings’ artistic production, [...]

Ash International A collaborator of Phill Niblock, Tony Conrad, Maryanne Amacher, Jim O’Rourke, Kevin Drumm and Borbetomagus, Thomas Ankersmit knows how to work within a minimalist structure by tarnishing some constituents and leaving clean what’s necessary for maintaining hypnosis active. For this concise and brilliant record he was assisted by Valerio Tricoli, another frequent artistic [...]

TUM Sometimes, all it takes to feel a little finer is looking at a face – better still, into a pair of focused eyes. Violinist Billy Bang’s intense stare welcomes you as soon as the CD booklet is opened, and his words about the actual essence of peace – as encouragingly naïve as they might [...]

Erstwhile I’ll never get tired from advocating comparative listening sessions (speakers and headphones, with preference to the latter) when releases such as Contact are tackled. A pair of discs comprising performances from two different Japanese sets in 2008, this is not what you’d call an immediate darling. By approaching it nonchalantly, perhaps just leaving the [...]

Erstwhile Coupling of well-traveled masters who, for good measure, engendered one of my overall favorites of the last decade (Between, same label). The music was recorded at Tokyo’s Kid Ailack Art Hall during 2008’s AMPLIFY: Light festival on guitar, electronics and no-input mixing board. After a few interlocutory seconds, the duo is seen with dirtied [...]

Another Timbre Wordlessly authoritative music, exemplary in firmly refusing cushiness, thoroughly logical in its essential configuration. Volden maneuvers a 12-string guitar with objects, Nakamura acts behind a legendary no-input mixing board. Over the course of the first chapter “Scattering” they leave the sonic events come about similarly to someone who stands immobile in a wood [...]

Monochrome Vision The three artists involved in Gambetta (title taken from a Tokyo venue that, curiously, also means “little leg” in Italian) might not instantly be recognized by the uninitiated, but their contributions to the Japanese movement has been consistent over the years. Mizutani was an original member of Masami Akita’s Merzbow, yet his best [...]

Tzadik Lots of influences characterize Blarvuster, Matthew Welch’s second CD on Tzadik, but the end result is not exactly what one would expect. Let’s start with the incontestable prowess of the musicians – rightly defined “stellar” by the press blurb – for included in this project are – among others – the talents of people [...]

ORCHESTRAMAXFIELDPARRISH PRESENTS ÆRA – To The Last Man / Index Of Dreaming / Pæan No.1 – The Paradise Syndrome Besides being an affable character, Mike Fazio is also the man in charge of Orchestramaxfieldparrish, a project active since over a decade ago. This limited edition triple CD, released at the beginning of 2009, comprises two [...]

Kraak It’s great when I receive a vinyl edition that contains materials for which one doesn’t have to worry about ticks and crackles ruining the content (and, furthermore, emits a wonderful scent of first-rate cardboard when you sniff it). The quartet of Christian Marclay, Lee Ranaldo, David Watson and Günter Müller – baptized the Afternoon [...]

1000 Füssler Oliver Peters chose the sounds for this work with the idea of (mostly) exploiting the triviality of certain everyday manifestations to turn it into oddity, achieving the result through various kinds of assignment and placement of microphones without redundant exercises of processing techniques. The upshot is not bad, but not overly impressive either. [...]

Psi Totally persuaded that, for the two artists who chose it, the name Furt wasn’t intended to mean what’s written here, let me remind that the word “furto” translates as “theft” in this writer’s native idiom. Consequently, linking this music to an act of lifting something from somewhere – or someone – might come quite [...]

Clean Feed Alto saxophonist Ehrlich and two of his Rites companions – drummer Pheeroan AkLaff and cellist Erik Friedlander – have been playing together, on and off, for decades. The fourth member, trumpeter James Zollar, is a more recent collaborator of the leader, but the way in which their voices mix is equally inspiring, each [...]

Kwanyin In several parts of this set the audience’s chatter almost overwhelms poor Li, who tries hard to affirm his energy but seems to be completely ignored. As the minutes flow, things get a little better and one is less distracted by silly laughs, cell phone tones and other assorted demonstrations of insensibility defining a [...]

Re-Records “An attempt to focus on field recordings and other site specific recordings”. Thus Yan Jun describes Lamma Island Diary, a collection of sixteen tracks precisely detailed in the internal leaflet, including the type of technique used and the exact setting in which the sources were captured. Difficult to understand Jun’s actual intentions, as this [...]

Rossbin Born in Buenos Aires and living in New York since several years ago, Laura Andel is one of those composers whose work is not immediately explicable. Not because it is confusing or scarcely illustrated – on the contrary, she applies rationality and intelligibility to every single detail of her scores, either predetermined or improvised [...]

Rossbin In 2010 (even if this album was released two years earlier) listening to 1h20min of this version of Eugene Chadbourne is a bit like spending a whole evening smiling forcedly at the somewhat trite jokes of an old uncle whose spirit you reluctantly appreciate; however, when it comes down to honesty, one would much [...]

Edition I gave up the hope of finding some guts, or just the vague semblance of an emotion, in this overly lengthy CD after the fourth spin. Stan Sulzmann (saxes), Jim Hart (vibes, marimba), Kit Downes (piano) and Tim Giles (drums) play a variety of harmless jazz characterized by dozens of overused ingredients shuffled, swallowed [...]

Edition Seriously typified by two essential factors – the tremendous precision of the arrangements, and the suave accent (a “Norah Jones-meets-Olivia Newton-John” kind of timbre) of singer Deborah Jordan, who might not be a vocal heavyweight but performs the parts with conscientious sensitiveness – The Cusp is a brilliantly conceived album by pianist and composer [...]

Edition Reasonably edgy non-figurativeness from a band led by drummer Martin France and comprising guitarist John Parricelli, bassist Tim Harries and percussionist and “sound-audio editor” Terje Evensen. In this circumstance they’re aided and, in a way, pushed onwards by none other than Nils Petter Molvær, who inserts his renowned trumpet lines (often evoking Jon Hassell’s [...]

Edition Nothing else but distinction can be expected from Dave Stapleton, possibly one of the finest jazz composers on the current British scene. Between The Lines confirms everything positive we wrote in the past about his music: an album which shows its many qualities little by little, not necessarily in surprising or dazzling fashion, but [...]

Edition This record, released in 2009, represents an ideal illustration of how a sense of logic-imbued poise alimented by clear-mindedness and class is enough to convert an album that would otherwise sound pretty normal into an episode in which delicacy and intricacy weigh the same, ultimately sustaining our interest over the course of several spins. [...]

Edition Looks like Phronesis (bassist Jasper Høiby, pianist Ivo Neame and, in this occasion only, drummer Mark Guiliana) are getting rave reviews, prizes and nominations everywhere, and being invited to a whole lot of festivals around the globe. What transpires from Alive is a series of facts. The cats can play for sure, exhibiting instrumental [...]

Edition Tamco is vocalist Tammy Payne’s project, strongly rooted in the 50s and 60s with the inevitable Hammond organ (Dan Moore) and twanging guitar (Neil Smith) building typical atmospheres upon the expert vamping of bassist Jim Barr and drummer Dylan Howe. It’s a nice, if unmemorable album that shows genuine love for the material (all [...]