Clean Feed Incontrovertibly struck by Eric Dolphy’s melodic jumpiness, bass clarinettist Jason Stein doesn’t wish that influence to take complete possess of his artistry. Having chosen a difficult tool for being remembered – in order to tackle a greater number of creative challenges, he says – Stein works in the alley where memory and newness [...]

Moonjune If you stopped listening after the initial delicateness of “Corale Di San Luca” – a tolling bell introducing special guest Richard Sinclair’s exquisite vocalizations on a quiet, yet not easy theme – you could almost think to a late chapter from Canterbury’s saga. Instead, Doubt improvise a lot, often indulging in overcharged superimpositions of [...]

Clean Feed Drummer Charles Rumback’s music is informed by a mild detachment that over the 49 minutes of this CD translates into a kind of gently impassive mood. This makes me picture an extremely controlled person who would not react badly even if someone came and hammered his big toe. The quartet, which features bassist [...]

Balloon & Needle This record is a product of Jason Kahn’s Seoul trip in 2009, made possible by Ryu Hankil’s organization of a number of concerts involving the American. The will of collaborating with “the core group” of Korean improvisers – which he had firstly met three years prior – turned into this recording at [...]

Another Timbre You can’t go wrong with field recordings of birds and planes remotely rupturing a countryside whisper, or the inherent weight of sparsely resonant piano gestures. “Fields Have Ears 1” contains all of these elements, a good opening move in Michael Pisaro’s near-namesake CD. Also scored for “tape”, it’s not mere bucolic quietness: undefined [...]

An underrated (…ignored?) label that has consistently been releasing electrifying records. Do yourself a favour and check them out. These are serious artists who work outside the disgraceful circles of “officially sanctioned” improvisation, expressing fun, excitement and huge heart. DAVE STONE / JAY ZELENKA / GREG MILLS – Premonitions Improvisation can be an ugly beast, [...]

Utech The messages delivered by the fury of natural elements are probably the scariest, yet Daniel Menche’s sensibility transforms peril into sublime awe. Following Blood Of The Land, on Ferns, Terre Paroxysm was again built upon impressive recordings of wind, ice and rain, unfolding in four specifically characterized movements. Despite previous attempts in the same [...]

Mutable Al Margolis started If, Bwana decades ago, when the cassette was a suitable medium for an idiosyncratic research. Even now that the latter is spelled out by talented musicians and released in technically improved media, it’s good to see that an element of slight weirdness – in turn defining a typical feel of unsettlement [...]

New World An algorithm used in some of his compositions, The World’s Longest Melody is also a rather deceiving name for Larry Polansky to introduce this collection of pieces expressly devised for the guitar. Though this instrument has always been an important resource for the composer, it is because of a tight relationship with the [...]

(The newer ones will be dealt with in due time, here or elsewhere – no worry). PHROQ – Connections, Opportunities For Mistakes Although the Phroq moniker has recently been disposed of by Meirino, this is not a convincing reason to quit looking for this excellent 2008 release. The sound of malfunctioning apparatuses and dying PAs [...]

HatOLOGY Active as a trio for about 17 years now, Eskelin, Parkins and Black were taped at Baltimore’s Towson University on December 9, 2007, a one-off American date – following an European tour – that was also the culmination of a day spent with the local students for a workshop. The latter’s excited interest lighted [...]

Creative Sources Enriched by the composer’s beautiful black and white picture as a child on the cover, Halbzeit is a precious demonstration of the abilities of Swiss clarinettist Eichenberger who, despite being an active contributor to the free music scene since decades, has always been relatively unsung (also due to his reluctance to saturate the [...]

PanRec Cologne-based Pavel Borodin is the man thanks to which a larger segment of population can enjoy exciting sets happening along the German/Austrian axis (and not only). Unlimited 23 follows Borodin’s excellent features on Elliott Sharp and the Speak Easy quartet. It’s a fine documentary about the 2009 edition of one of the most important [...]

Editions Mego In Man From Deep River, BJ Nilsen and Stilluppsteypa throw a number of winning psychoacoustic cards on different perceptive tables. Preliminary African echoes introduce an underground universe in which sinister hallucinations uncoil. Voices of children at play equalized to the extreme are heard as a cross of screaming seagulls and a laughing ghost, [...]

Porter Violist (cum violin) Pavone fronts a quartet in which an innate grace counterbalances the raw energy brought in by guitarist Pete Fitzpatrick, bassist Jonti Siman and drummer Harris Eisenstadt. Though certainly not stuff for the mealy-mouthed, the resulting music is also not overly rebel, allowing a partial memorization of theoretical themes and recalling certain [...]

Self-Release A new name in the present-day ambient multitude, Mendel Kaelen deals in unchanging harmonies and quasi-static panoramas. His music does possess a cinematic temperament but leaves me asking for something more from a compositional point of view. It can work for a while at extremely low volume, the prevailing frequencies lingering on as white [...]

Brocoli Everything can be done in music today with a laptop; abominable to majestic, funny to pathetic. Roux and Epplay chose to stand on the right side of the fence, their multicoloured variety of musique concrete representing a valid example of how good taste and astuteness go a long way when an artist (or two) [...]

Dragon’s Eye Influenced by painter Barnett Newman’s “solid color canvases broken by vertical lines of various shades”, Blau showcases two stimulating talents with a fair degree of success. One assumes that the method applied by the duo involves the use of Bivins’ unsophisticated instrumental matter as the source for Phillips’ treatment. In the opening minutes [...]

Fang I must have missed mentions of this record in the habitual channels, otherwise the relative hush around it would appear pretty strange. It was released in 2009 by a young Scottish artist who’s also been a reviewing colleague for a short while, writing on Bagatellen just months prior of that website’s demise. Panoptic, in [...]

Aural Terrains The nearly 21 minutes of “Snow In Hadal Zone” – which absorbs two thirds of Erosions, the newest record by London-based Ian S. aka Lutnahimat – are but a miniature replica of Nurse With Wound’s Soliloquy For Lilith. The mesmerizing effect is there, the originality unfortunately not, however I tend to forgive an [...]

Aural Terrains Difficult, on a first listen, to believe that the two pieces by Tomas Phillips and Francisco López featured on IC were born from the same source materials. An attentive ear is definitely going to locate points of comparison – especially in the way in which the artists exploit the sort of remote rumble [...]

Self-Release In 2064 this reviewer will be 100; the Italian capital, where he was born and still works (luckily not “lives”), is indeed a Sub City. Not in the sense meant by this duo: what I’m implying is that Rome is a place mainly inhabited by sub-normal populaces self-persuaded of their importance. These are in [...]

Another Timbre Forge works the trombone’s hidden corners, Toulemonde is credited with “acoustic objects” (a definition that makes no actual sense, to be honest). This record – though not bad – jeopardizes tolerance, for the area in which these artists reveal their findings is steadily becoming a graveyard for erstwhile fresh approaches and unforeseen results. [...]

Sourdine In general, the sonic world of Asher does not define contours. In Four Compositions, though, more discernible truths seem to appear behind the hissy haze and the digital grime. The sounds comprised by this tape propose a slightly different observation angle for what this Massachusetts-based gracious hermit usually tries to convey through his music. [...]