Pogus The four compositions on this double CD can nearly be divided in conflicting groupings as far as this listener’s response and psychosomatic participation are concerned. The first and the last seem to tend to the “ice-cold examination” area, while the middle chapters are the ones in which a certain degree of empathy is detectable. [...]

Kendra Steiner The late Frank Zappa was among the first composers that I know to apply the process of “xenochrony” to music: that is to say, juxtaposing recordings from antithetic settings and diverse eras in a single, studio-generated opus. Red Canopy is founded on a kindred philosophy: the sounds were pre-recorded by each performer in [...]

Edgetone Following a quartet release under the name of Bloom (not yet heard on these shores), two notable members of that unit – Thollem Mcdonas and Rent Romus – ride a tandem directed to the more concealed, yet still totally reachable neighbourhoods of piano-and-reed extemporaneous performance. Knowing the level of technical adeptness and the confidence [...]

Edgetone Mark Wilson’s array of guitars, pedals, urban field recordings, microphones placed on various objects and “a keyboard” causes the imprisonment of the brain in the molasses of an inexorably escalating, horrendously captivating noise. Strings, Locations is one of those records for which the relinquishment of a critical sense is indispensable. It’s mostly transmitting an [...]

Pogus This wide-ranging release presents two compositions multiplied for each of the four participants, Oliveros and López being the ones I was already acquainted with; both Van Nort’s electroacoustic researching and Braasch’s experiments with soprano saxophone and ventures in Telematic Music and Intelligent Music Systems were foreign language to date. Straight away, this is difficult-to-swallow food [...]

Moonjune Indonesian fusion is not my specialty, however after listening to this CD you could easily declare that things have arrived at a more than decent level in that area of the world. Tohpati Ario Hutomo is an excellent guitarist (already met in another Moonjune-produced project, Simak Dialog). Here he leads a quintet with two [...]

Kendra Steiner An outstanding album yet no more than 89 copies, for Kendra Steiner always publishes awfully limited runs. This one must be grabbed as soon as it’s spotted. Texan Fariss employed contrabass, sinewaves, field recordings, snippets of conversation and various metropolitan presences to devise four striking pieces that fit in diverse categories. I’ll leave [...]

Unseen Worlds On a particularly problematic Christmas Eve, it’s almost six in the morning when the understated variations and touching chordal openings of “George Fox Searches” are spreading through an entirely quiet atmosphere, immediately evoking memories of something lived as a child. The starting point for these improvisations is an ancient religious tune called “How [...]

Dancing Wayang In Phil Minton’s mind-boggling “singing”, humankind is represented in all of its components, ages and sexes. The innocence of a baby uttering the first syllables and testing the voice in those typical oscillating micro-mantras amidst the surrounding racket. The manifestation of despair accompanying a woman’s sorrow for the loss of a son. The [...]

Dancing Wayang It may sound surprising for someone, but this new solo LP by Peter Evans has more to do with timbral subtleness rather than being just another container of inexhaustible improvisational talkativeness. Six tracks that identify many of the trumpeter’s previously unrevealed facets in terms of breath and tongue management, limitation of the screaming [...]

Avantwhatever To begin with some fun, the net label from which this work can be downloaded wins – hands down – the first prize for “best name” this year. The music is not a joke, though: no doubt about it when one is greeted by the kind of compression of the nerves that several of [...]

Psi Rarely the extreme fringes of human expression, ornithology and ancient past have sounded as close as they do in Squall Line, fourteen improvisation taped at Whitstable’s St.Peter’s Church in 2009. One wonders what eventual bypassers, after listening to the extraordinary sounds coming from that holy place in mid-July, were thinking. Wassermann’s hard-to-believe straining of [...]

Künstlerhäuser Worpspede From 2009, Hier Und Da comprises four pieces by Berlin electroacoustic composer Vowinckel, who is concerned with the dislodgment of snippets of vocal secretions – standard speech, dialects or unclassifiable remarks – within frameworks that emphasize their inherent musicality. The best account of such a curiosity is to be found in the initial [...]

Israeli reedman Shibolet presents us with three CDs – a solo and a couple of duos – on JC Jones’ Kadima Collective label. Each record’s sleeve is adorned by a Twombly painting, with nice aural incentives to be found in there for good measure. ARIEL SHIBOLET – Live At The Total Music Meeting  Specifically, the [...]

HatOLOGY This is the second edition of a concert that shows, even to the not conversant, at what level of eloquent eagerness the Steve Lacy Five were able to convey utterly intelligible visions. The intertwining material created by the couple of forwards – the leader on his peerless soprano, Steve Potts on alto and soprano [...]

Quiet World “6 pieces of music inspired by the land and sea of the Gower Peninsula in South Wales where I live”. This is the simple, and probably most efficient description of the materials contained in These Clockwork Tides, a 50-copy limited edition on CDR that brings back to my ears the work of the [...]

Solstice The characteristic nonappearance of technical data on how the music was generated, the mystifying photographs adorning the covers (in this occasion, the wheels of a trash container) and the advantageous effects that the sounds produce on our whole being are but three of the reasons for which Koji Asano’s records are always kindly greeted [...]

Mazagran Despite the friendship with Eliane Radigue and Phill Niblock (who, reportedly, were pleased with his decision of writing a one-note composition for four organs) Tom Johnson states that he will probably depart – without returning – from this sonic area. I am not overly inconsolable after listening several consecutive times to this disc, which [...]

Quiet World Where for “Umbrella Man” Matthews means “Erik Satie”, who was extremely fond of that particular object. In about 23 minutes (intelligent decision), subdivided in seven tracks, snippets of celebrated works by the renowned composer are altered, cut, speeded up or slowed down, spiced with sub-bass and other types of moderately displacing frequencies, or [...]

Clean Feed This French-American combination of reeds, piano and drums reveals its values through a type of music whose immediate outlook appears cleverly questioning and emancipated from styles at once, making the most of swiftly executed instant designs that never give the idea of miscalculated moves or sixth-sense deficiency. Yet in Eldorado Trio, a mix [...]

Basses Frequences “A temporary community of musicians with a central goal stripped of self: to become one”. The quote from the press release might be an impeccable literary condensation to depict the music comprised by this album, the document of a 2009 live performance of Duane Pitre’s 11-piece ensemble entirely focusing on strings (though the [...]

Insides Music In order to get acquainted with what “de minimis” means, just google it and check your local Wikipedia. For me, the initial aim while approaching this double CD was to gain knowledge on Mr. Huovinen (whom the very Milo Fine had never met ahead of February 5, 2010 when the former attended a [...]

Al Maslakh After a few initial strokes of rasping chordal resonance and grey-tinged spring-and-bounce, the acoustic guitar that constitutes Sharif Sehnaoui’s source of all sounds starts being bumped and hit – mostly, but not always, gently – along a lengthy route denominated “To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before”. This 34-minute investigation of [...]

Al Maslakh Witty name for an album, especially when one reads “tiles” associated to Alessandra Rombolá’s flutes and preparations. Muta’s other members are Rhodri Davies on electric harp and electronics, and Ingar Zach on percussion, sruti box and what’s called “drone commander”. These recordings, happened in 2009 in Beirut, show how textural tampering can still [...]

Monotype Michael Vorfeld rejuvenates the suffering auricular membranes of those who are scared of listening to a solitary artist improvising for a whole record. A justified terror, given the proven insignificance of innumerable insipid “efforts” that certain self-professed geniuses throw out with debilitating effects for the patience of poor listeners desirous of substance. The unconventional [...]

Leo Although I had never heard of him to date, looks like reedist Kruglov (sax and flute) acts among the “brightest stars” in contemporary Russian jazz, various connections with Ganelin Trio constituting the most important trait of his resume. What’s heard in Seal Of Time – five tracks recorded both in studio and during a [...]