Editions Mego After an initial onslaught of assorted blasts, outbursts and noisy clattering followed by a few moments of inquietude defined by asymmetrical traits of analogue synthesis, Indeed – first proper release from this pair of artists – stabilizes its sonic fluctuation into a series of not exactly hospitable milieus that hide several dangers under [...]

Mode “Music does not need an explanation: neither through images, nor through any numbers. In my opinion, pure technical explanations or descriptions are boring for an audience”. Giacinto Scelsi’s sentence from a 1984 interview with Wilfried Brennecke – besides throwing a heavy gravestone upon all the residual hopes of us reviewers – synthesizes what is [...]

Infraction Spanning across two CDs, Salvaged Violets is perhaps one of the most elusive Celer releases ever. Recorded by Will and Dani Long throughout 2008 as they were frequently distant from each other for work reasons, it is the fruit of a progressive series of solitary sessions that were reciprocally developed with the passage of [...]

Carrier Well, this had to happen, and luckily it has. Evans and Wooley represent the sharpest blades in the most advanced phalanx of trumpet-raping berserk-ness (though they both are totally able of tackling the “regular” aspects of playing without fear of no one). High Society – incorrigible pulmonary anarchy channelled (via hot tubes) into a [...]

Interval When Ido Govrin inquired about yours truly’s interest in reviewing a work entirely spoken in Hebrew (translated from older Yiddish), the immediate reply was affirmative, for my attitude towards idioms that can’t be decoded on the spot is that of considering them as just another component in the complexity of a specified sonic tissue. [...]

Monotype Recorded in Switzerland in 2009, the two lengthy tracks comprised by Intervals present exactly what is expected by artists (and percussionists) at the level of sensitiveness of Z’EV and Jason Kahn. The interest lies in observing how the numerical complexity of the former’s intuitions adapts to the latter’s trademark tolling pulses and near-subconscious droning, [...]

Die Schachtel The music on Entelechy was recorded in 2008 at the Open Circuit-Interact Festival in Hasselt, Belgium. That it remained unreleased for three years, regardless of its vibrant energy and out-and-out extraordinariness, tells a lot about what the masses seem to prefer and/or demand in the view of a contemporary label. Better late than [...]

The Land Of Artistic units like My Fun (Justin Hardison, also The Land Of’s founder and runner) are the exact reason for which we deem a handcrafted item as five times more gratifying than a download, particularly at this level of distinction. Camaraderie is in fact the joint effort of Hardison (obviously providing the music), [...]

Tench By the use of sounds generated via unspecified acoustic and electronic instruments, Phillips and Hara produced a succession of aural snapshots whose level of insightfulness is variable, without loss of consistency. In fact, what saves Prosa from the cauldron of average electronica is the duo’s competence in juxtaposing dissimilar pictures according to a logical [...]

Tench Chance Reconstruction, this reviewer’s initial meeting with Baltimore’s Ostermeier, sounds like a collection of pieces played by an introverted kid trying to extract moderately autistic melodic repetition from the remnants of his toys, previously destroyed by some bad-mannered thug. At the basis of the whole lies the piano, emitting undemanding linear snippets halfway through [...]

Leo This record is the physical authentication of an open-minded meeting between a master and his pupil, though Masashi Harada (piano, flute, voice) prefers to describe the late Joe Maneri (tenor and alto saxes, clarinet, voice) as a father-like figure with whom he shared a great number of artistic discoveries over the course of a [...]

Infraction Working with stretched samples of “classical and contemporary works” through a network of software, loops and bows (both electric and manual), Loren Dent likes to dramatically freeze the decaying features of persistence within compositions that are best described as gradual parabolas of mainly string-based clusters. Intermittently, the consonant factors attempt to take over, thus [...]

Audiomoves Influenced by old films shot during numerous trips abroad by a frequently travelling grandmother, and by the strange absence of reports and stories about those journeys, Kyoto’s Marihiko Hara has fathered a collection of quiet electronic pieces halfway through introspective electronica and microsound that make the most of what he calls “reflecting on a [...]

Konnex In Transit is a group consisting of pianist Michael Jefry Stevens with three Swiss musicians: reedist Jürg Solothurnmann, bassist Daniel Studer and drummer Dieter Ulrich. Shifting Moods is their second release after 2007’s Moving Stills on Unit. The quartet’s primary drive lies in the proposition of completely improvised material, created on the spot whenever [...]

Löwenhertz Let’s face it, it’s not uncommon to find electroacoustic music whose leaning towards immoderate grandeur renders the listening experience an ordeal despite intellectual implications and philosophical motivations. Those demoralizing features are all but forgotten in Landschaft Mit Flöte, a natural-sounding juxtaposition of virtuoso playing by flutist Lacroix (in turn, sampled and electronically modified by [...]

Psi Known in the avant-garde circles as half of FURT – the electroacoustic duo with Paul Obermayer – and the life partner of that amazing warbler named Ute Wassermann, Richard Barrett is among the last measurable examples of contemporary composer impervious to latent negative responses to allegedly unfeasible solutions and unrealistic timbral juxtapositions, thus reinforcing [...]

Rummaging through my archive I found this pair of CDs sent by the ever-lovely Amy Denio. The accompanying card contained a wish for the New Year, written in Italian… and dated January 2009. Perdonami, Amy! THE TIPTONS SAX QUARTET – Laws Of Motion A co-production with Jessica Lurie’s Zipa! imprint, Laws Of Motion comprises a [...]

Porter We’re fortunate to be able to enjoy this music today. According to Burton Greene, the tape that contained it has endured a fair share of harsh conditions over the years, with a special mention for dampness. The relatively poor audio quality is not enough to cancel the historical value of the performance, of which [...]

Self Release The weird code of this project’s name derives from the contraction of A Spirale (a group already reviewed – positively – on these shores, lending saxophonist Mario Gabola and guitarist Maurizio Argenziano here) paired with the artistic nom de plume of Mimmo Napolitano, who deals with synthesizers and electronic secretions. The CD was [...]

Porter A commentator can only do so much in front of records like this, a 2009 concert recorded in Camden, New Jersey just six months prior Rashied Ali’s birth into eternity. Framed by two poems by Grimes, the performance is one of the most vivid, fulgent examples of meaningful head-to-head interaction that I’ve had the [...]

Clean Feed The weight of a gesture is enhanced by conciseness in relation to the muscular strength of who makes it. In that sense the material comprised by Old And Unwise – a full hour of duos for double bass and alto saxophone – frequently seems to relate to the substantial aspect of artistry rather [...]

Psi Contrarily to the perverse trend en vogue among certain jazz visagistes – that of reducing what once was unconstrained to a series of aesthetically agreeable rules – the trio of Aki Takase, John Edwards and the late Tony Levin, here recorded in a couple of 2008 live stints in the UK, is not concerned [...]

Psychonavigation Giulio Aldinucci/Obsil – hailing from the land of my blood and roots, Tuscany – is a 30-year old composer working with orchestral samples and concrete materials in a way that is both appreciably naïve and technically competent. The nine tracks of Vicino (“Near”) range from exquisite patchworks constructed with multitudes of snippets – including [...]

Mirror Tapes Not only Thom Bailey produces some of the most invigorating computer-assisted noise music around; he can also write interestingly on hundreds of disparate topics, typically in relation to the effects of certain sounds on the human brain. The booklet accompanying this tape explicates too many unknowable facts to be listed here, but the [...]

Copy For Your Records Guthrie defines herself as an “acoustician”, a stimulating term potentially encompassing lots of different things. This 150-copy limited edition CD focuses instead on very few elements, the most important being the perception of the surroundings. The bulk of the matter is in fact defined by the incidence of metropolitan activity, close [...]

SIMON WHETHAM – Beneath The Swinging Bridge An expert in installations, Whetham is not parsimonious as far as lavish reverberations and gravity deriving from the exploitation of frequencies are concerned. The only problem is that obtaining music from the various components in and around an overpass is not something that was never thought before (John [...]

HENRY KUNTZ – Whirling Sun Visions Subtitled “Multi-Track Works-In-Process Miniatures”, this is a collection of pieces for overlaid saxophones, vocals and exotic percussives, although the latter are not present in all the tracks. Kuntz appears very interested in the generation of ritualistic moods through the concurrence of different pulses, the presence of the Javanese gamelan [...]

When reflecting on Milo Fine the picture is that of a combustive artistic specimen, an impulsive multi-instrumentalist linkable – quite inescapably – to adjectives like “rebellious”, “volatile”, “volcanic”. A part of these definitions rings true, for Fine’s output does contain germs of creative antagonism that many people struggle to recognize. It’s a problem typically related [...]

Amirani Rather ironically, the object of this review was first listened during a devastating downpour that would justify an opposite adjective for the month. This aside, trombonist Angelo Contini, saxophonist Gianni Mimmo and violinist Stefano Pastor are featured in a set where the background details of a nice al fresco evening can be easily identified: [...]

Edgetone The barely pronounceable title means “compositions and improvisations” in an idiom utilized in certain Mexican rural communities. Estamos Ensemble is an assembly of improvisers from US and Mexico gathered by Thollem McDonas in the hope of an increased communication between artists from these neighbouring countries. Having started activities in 2009, the collective is now [...]

Cuneiform Can asymmetry become the next step to perfection? Listening to the skewed tempos and effervescent glitches of which this Dutch quartet offers handfuls, the answer would have to be positive. Saxophonist Dirk Bruinsma, bassist Viljam Nybacka, drummer Gerri Jäger and guitarist Jeroen Kimman are all involved in writing scores for the company, of which [...]