#Ballrogg

[musicollage]

Ballrogg – Cabin Music. Hubro : 2012.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 7, Number 1

Phicus

Another year, another volume of Dust, which means we’ve been collecting these brief, pithy reviews for seven years now.  This time around, we sample the usual cornucopia of genres, from ambient death metal to Iranian punk to noisy skree to shoegaze-y lookalikes to polyglot global dj grooves, with the usual stops in free jazz and improvisatory environments. Contributors include Jonathan Shaw, Bill Meyer, Ian Mathers, Jennifer Kelly, Bryon Hayes and Andrew Forell.  

Aberration — S/T (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Aberration by Aberration

Not sure what “ambient dark death metal” is, but recently formed band Aberration claims to play it. The “ambient” bit may be a nod to the drone that sometimes resonates deep in the mix of the three songs on this 10” EP. Other than that, Aberration’s music sounds pretty typical of the death metal created by bands on the primitive, murky end of the genre’s sonic continuum. Some of the musicians are in other, more established projects: John Hancock plays guitar and provides vocals in the widely admired death doom outfit Void Rot, Dylan Haseltine plays bass and sings for the blackened death metal (mostly black metal, it seems to me) band the Suffering Hour. Those bands have much more specific musical identities, and their intense records express the players’ clarity of vision. Perhaps Aberration wants to live up to its name, presenting something unprecedented, an unpleasant mutation — and hence, perhaps, the decision to release the vinyl version of the EP on an unusual format. That’s sort of fun. The music is not. But that’s nothing new in death metal, and to be honest, these songs don’t warrant the announcement of a new sub-subgenre. They are just fine, if you like your death metal atavistic, cavernous and claustrophobic. But an aberration? Nope. Maybe a weeping pustule. In death metal, isn’t that enough?

Jonathan Shaw

 Steve Baczkowski / Bill Nace — Success (Notice)

Success by Steve Baczkowski/Bill Nace

Dallas is synonymous with a sort of excess that begs to be perceived as success. Old TV shows, memories of oil, nation-splitting politics, you name it; it’s bigger, badder and gaudier in Dallas. A tape of a free improv show that was recorded at a Dallas bookstore might not fit your preconceptions of longhorn accomplishment, but go ahead and tell that to Steve Baczkowski and Bill Nace. If they answer at all, they might let you gently know that it’s your problem, and then pop in the tape. This 42-minute-long recording will hook you by the belt, take off into the stratosphere, drag you through an asteroid belt, and deposit your cindered remains by the bar (yes, The Wild Detectives serves liquor as well as literature) before the tape reverses. That still leaves plenty of time savor the duo’s mastery of transition, from stout-sounded duel to fading filigree framing the sounds of the cash register opening and closing. Yeah, that’s the sound of Success.

Bill Meyer

 Aidan Baker — There/Not There (Consouling Sounds)

There / Not There by Aidan Baker

Unsurprisingly, 2020 doesn’t seem to have slowed Aidan Baker (Nadja, WERL, Caudal, Hypnodrone Ensemble, and many more) much at all. Of the many records released under his own name, the recent There/Not There stands out for being a surprisingly accessible entry to his personal metal/drone/ambient/shoegaze melting pot, even given the opening 20-minute title track. “There/Not There” marries some whispery shoegaze songwriting with a beautifully monomaniacal repeating drone. Over the course of the track, it does slowly transition until we get to a crescendo as intense as any Baker’s done, but even more so than normal the unwary might get lured in by the low key, blissful opening and the frog-boiling slowness with which the tension is ratcheted up. One of the other two tracks is really just a way to section off the real noise-squall coda of “There/Not There” but then “Paris (Lost)” offers a more concise, quieter storm version of the same framework. Like a lot of Baker’s work, it sneaks up on you, but when it hits it hits hard. 

Ian Mathers

Ballrogg — Rolling Ball (Clean Feed)

Rolling Ball by Ballrogg

The Scandinavian combo Ballrogg changes direction once again on Rolling Ball. Founders Klaus Ellerhusen Holm (clarinets) and Roger Arntzen (bass), who are both Norwegian, started out reinvestigating the folksy jazz vibe of Jimmy Giuffre, then sought out a new home on the range by adding slide guitarist Ivar Grydeland. Now, incoming Swedish guitarist David Stackenäs and his rack of pedals have redirected the trio into a technology-enhanced future. Not the sci-fi imaginings of Sun Ra, but a future more like 2019 might look if you stepped straight into it from 1959; in some ways quite familiar, but in others, different enough to be disorienting. The Giuffre-esque and country elements are still there, but when punctuated by minimalist-influenced compositional flourishes and illuminated by the diffuse, digital flicker of Stackenäs’ effects, it suddenly becomes clear that those Viking cowboys didn’t put a key in the ignition before they drove out towards the horizon.

Bill Meyer

 Bipolar — S-T (Slovenly)

BIPOLAR "Bipolar" EP by Bipolar

For a band named Bipolar, with a single called “Depression,” this EP sure is a lot of fun. Two of the band’s mainstays are apparently Iranian emigres, now seeking the more permissive environs of Brooklyn. (The only hint of that exotic origin is in “Sad Clown,” where there might be an imam exhorting the faithful, but who knows? I don’t speak Farsi.) One of them sometimes plays keyboard with the Spits, and in fact, the Spits are a pretty good reference point for these hard, fast, bratty songs. “Virus” pummels a relentless pogo beat, the one-two of the drums rocketing ever faster, the shouted all-hands chorus in tumbling sync. “Fist Fight” is even more exhilarating, with its blaring, roiling guitar blast and adrenaline-raising refrain, “It’s a fist fight. It’s a fist fight.” There’s nothing profound here, but it’s a good time.

Jennifer Kelly  

 Bosq — Y Su Descarga Internacional (Bacalao)

Y Su Descarga Internacional by bosq

Bosq, a globally omnivorous DJ formerly based in Boston (real name Benjamin Woods), recently moved to Colombia, perhaps to get closer to his source material. The Colombian influence is certainly strong on Y Su Descarga Internacional, which opens with a scorching “Rumbero,” featuring the Afro-Colombian star Nidia Góngora. Dorkas, another singer from Colombia, follows immediately with “Mi Arizal,” an intricately textured dance track which erupts with fiery bursts of Latin brass. Justo Valdez, whose Son Palenque did much to define the Cartagena sound in the 1960s and 1970s, drops by for two of the album’s best tracks: a rollicking “Mambue” and the hand-drummed, bass-thumping hand-clapping “Onombitamba.” And yet the album doesn’t just document the singers and artists of Bosq’s new home. Kaleta, a Benin-based Afro-beat artist who has worked with Fela Kuti and Eqypt 80, takes the lead on funk psych “Omo Iya” and the stirring, horn squalling “Wake Up.” Bosq knows how to pick collaborators, and there’s not a dud track on the disc, but wouldn’t almost anyone sound like a genius in company like this?

Jennifer Kelly

Deuce Avenue — Death of Natural Light (Crash Symbols)

Death of Natural Light by Deuce Avenue

If you are a lurker of the cassette underground, you may remember a West Virginian outfit called Social Junk appearing in the mid-aughts. This duo offered up crackling melodic scree, blown out murky fuzz and semi-coherent mouth sounds like an industrialized version of The Dead C or a new wave outfit newly recovered post-coma. Noah Anthony, the male half of Social Junk, has since moved on to releasing solo material under both the Profligate and Deuce Avenue monikers. The latter is the more recent project and is quite minimal compared to his other work. With Death of Natural Light, there are no cold wave rhythms and vocals à la Profligate. What’s left is a dank, steamy vapor. Contrails of filter-swept hiss slowly develop into a more enigmatic and darkened tonal palette. The ominousness continues to thread its way into the second half of the cassette, fittingly entitled “Blood Turns Black”. Loops of nocturnal jump scare fodder coalesce into rhythms that provide skeletal forms to foil the menace of the more oblique textures. Those who enjoy their horror in slow motion will latch onto these sounds like a facehugger to… …well, a person’s face.  

Bryon Hayes   

 Fleeting Joys — Despondent Transponder (Only Forever)

Despondent Transponder by Fleeting Joys

Let’s start with the obvious. Despondent Transponder sounds a lot like MBV’s Loveless, with wild sirening guitar tones, waves of noise-y feedback, thunderous drumming and sweet, fragile lyrics engulfed in the swirl. “Go and Come Back” has the same fluttering guitar melody as the great “To Here Knows When,” while “Satellite” blusters with the dopplering, dissonance-addled grandeur as “I Only Said.” Fleeting Joys — that was Rorika Loring singing and playing bass and John Loring on guitar and vox — never made any secret of their love of MBV. Despondent Transponder was an homage right from the start. The album was the debut for this Sacramento-based twosome, released originally in 2006, then as now on Loring’s own Only Forever label. And yet, while no one will ever top Loveless, from an ear-bleeding psych-noise daydream perspective, this one has its own particular beauties. “Magnificent Oblivion” surrounds a lullaby-pure melody with a reeling, caterwauling mesh of inchoate sound; guitar notes stream off in bending contrails as Rorika murmurs sweetly into the mic. “Patron Saint” lurches to motion on a Frankenstein bass riff, but softens the brutality with calming washes of vocal hypnotism. It’s all super beautiful and, anyway, even after the reunion, there aren’t nearly enough MBV albums. Plenty of room for a band that sounds so similar.

Jennifer Kelly

 Get Smart! — Oh Yeah No (Capitol Punishment)

Push play: driving staccato guitars, rubbery bass lines, lockstep drums, declamatory vocals and it’s the mid-1980s all over again. Lawrence, Kansas trio Get Smart! — Marcus Koch (guitar, vocals) Lisa Wertman Crowe (bass, vocals) and Frank Loose (drums, vocals) — have that timeless mixture of English post-punk and American indie down. Then see that 33 years after it was recorded Oh Yeah No finally sees the light of day on the back of the band’s reformation. Time and the cycle of musical fashions are fickle beasts and in this case the wheels turn in Get Smart!’s favor. They sound both of their time and thoroughly in tune with the steady flow of recent guitar bands mining this lode of choppy, melodic indie. The Embarrassment, Big Dipper, Pylon and other regional heroes are being rediscovered and reassessed and, here’s the thing, Get Smart! are really good at what they do and this six-track EP is both a testament and, hopefully, a taste of what the future may hold.  

Andrew Forell  

 Rich Halley / Matthew Shipp / Michael Bisio / Newman Taylor Baker — The Shape Of Things (Pine Eagle Records)

The Shape of Things by Rich Halley

If the bolt strikes twice, it’s probably not lightning. The Shape Of Things is the second successful meeting between Rich Halley, a tenor saxophonist based in the Pacific Northwest, and the current members of the Matthew Shipp Trio. The album is, like its predecessor Terra Incognita, a congress of strengths. Shipp’s trio follows the pianist easily into one of his classic roles, that of supplying sonic foundation and harmonic framing for an extroverted saxophonist. Halley fights right into the spaces that they create, rippling easily over the trio’s turbulent surfaces. He works within the broader jazz tradition, sounding equally at home patiently sketching a lyrical line and blowing raw, acidic cries. This ensemble plays achieves a state of centered abandon which feels wilder than Halley’s recordings with West Coast musicians, but fits right into the spectrum that contains Shipp’s work with the David S. Ware Quartet and Ivo Perelman.

Bill Meyer

 A Hutchie — Potion Shop (Cosmic Resonance)

Potion Shop by A Hutchie

Hamilton, Ontario-based producer Aaron Hutchinson has his fingers in many pies. He nimbly dispenses free jazz, hip hop, outré pop and even more enigmatic forms of song. Potion Shop is his debut LP, although he is a long-time fixture in the Steeltown music scene. This immersion in a small, tight-knit domain has led to many fruitful collaborations. Hutchinson features many of his compatriots in these recordings, in which his music snakes alongside their vocal stylings. Mutant 21st century soul singlehandedly played by Hutchinson is a foil for the slam poetry of Benita Whyte and Ian Keteku, the latter of which the producer warps with a vocoder. Sarah Good’s vocals morph into those of a ghostly chanteuse among smeared strings, while the soulful Blankie swims beneath narcotic R&B beats. When imbibing these intoxicating concoctions, you will be immersed in a warmth of familiarity tempered with the unsettling yet exciting sense of the uncanny. Like absinthe, the disquiet is illusory while the intimacy is authentic.

Bryon Hayes  

 Imha Tarikat — Sternenberster (Prophecy Productions)

STERNENBERSTER by IMHA TARIKAT

Imha Tarikat’s principal member Ruhsuz Cellât (stage name of Kerem Yilmaz) breaks with black metal orthodoxy by musically engaging his family’s Muslim heritage. That’s a provocative move in an artform dominated by glib nihilism, rampant anti-religious sentiment and (somehow sometimes all at the same time) ardent claims of Satanist faith. And that distinction at the symbolic level likely doesn’t come near the intensities of being of Turkish descent, living and recording in Germany, in a scene that flirts (and at its extreme margins actively identifies) with fascism. Beyond those ideological and social dimensions is the music. Imha Tarikat demonstrates facility with tremolo riffs and song forms that twist and snake even as they hammer and pummel. But Cellât’s unusual vocal style cuts against convention’s grain, and it’s immediately apparent as album opener “Ekstase ohne Ende” commences. There’s a lot of grunting and hollering, but rather than contorting his voice, shrieking and croaking in mode of most black metal vocalists, Cellât goes for more straightforward intensity. He often shouts, and the lyrics frequently come in bunches, explosive and punctuated bursts of verbiage, but he makes no attempt to distort the lyrics or his voice. I wish my grasp of German were even halfway close to fluent, in order to report on the lyrics’ thematic content with some coherence — because Cellât clearly wants the words to be heard.

Jonathan Shaw

Jon Irabagon / Mike Pride / Mick Barr / Ava Mendoza — Don’t Hear Nothin’ But The Blues Vol 3 Anatomical Snuffbox (Irrabagast Records)

I Don't Hear Nothin' but the Blues Volume 3: Anatomical Snuffbox by Jon Irabagon

Never mind the blues; if you don’t exercise caution, when you’re done playing this loud-at-any-volume recording, you won’t hear nothin’. The latest installment in tenor saxophonist John Irabagon’s series of one-track, meta-blues recordings starts out with a spray of sound as bracing as Saharan sandstorm, but quickly solidifies into a veritable wall of sound. At the outset, Irabagon and drummer Mike Pride engage in a high-speed dance of charge and countercharge which, if heard without accompaniment, would sit comfortably on the same shelf as your Mars Williams and Mats Gustafsson records. But when you put guitarists Mick Barr and Ava Mendoza on the same stage and tell them both to start shredding, the effect is somewhat akin to putting the pyrotechnic specialists in charge of the circus. Subtlety, dynamics and even the oxygen you breath all disappear as everything catches fire. If any of the participants here have effectively bent your ear, you ought to listen all the way through once. By the time it’s done, you’ll know in your heart whether you ever need to hear it again.

Bill Meyer    

 John Kolodij — First Fire / At Dawn (Astral Editions)

First Fire • At Dawn by John Kolodij

Where there’s fire, there’s often smoke, and while this tape claims alignment with Hephaestus’ element, it’s more likely to evoke thick clouds. As the capstans turn, the murk of “At Fire” accumulates gradually, filling the room with an increasingly dense atmosphere. By the time you notice flashes of flame, it’s too late. “At Dawn” brings to mind a lesser conflagration — maybe the embers of the previous night’s campfire. John Kolodij (who has, until recently, recorded mainly under the name High Aura’d) pushes his heavily processed guitar sound into the background, where it lurks with a bit of birdsong, and leads with an unamplified banjo and acoustic guitar. Fiddler Anna RG (of Anna & Elizabeth) further bolsters the melody while some sparse percussion played by Sarah Hennies heightens the sense of moment. Once more, a mass of disembodied sound rises up as the piece progresses, but this time the effect is the opposite; instead of getting lost in sound, the listener finds a moment of peace and light.

Bill Meyer

 Lytton / Nies / Scott / Wissel — Do They Do Those In Red? (Sound Anatomy)

Do they do those in Red? by Paul Lytton, Joker Nies, Richard Scott, Georg Wissel

“Do they do those in red?” The title may speak to the particular peculiarities of this combo, which is formed from several pre-existing duos, Joker Nies is credited with “electrosapiens,” which seem to be self-constructed electronic instruments, and George Wissel applies various items to his saxophone to modify its sound. Georg Wissel’s synthesizers come with some assembly required, and it would appear that Paul Lytton, best known for playing drum kits and massive percussion assemblages, confines himself in this setting to the stuff he can fit on a tabletop. What, you think your saxophone is prettier because it doesn’t have anything red jammed into a valve?  

Moving on to the music, while the sound sources are heavily electronic, the interactive style is rooted in good old-fashioned free improvisation. Lytton’s barrage sounds remarkably similar to what he achieves playing with a full drum kit, and Wissel’s lines may be more fractured, but his alto sound has some of the tonal heft and agility that John Butcher exercises on the tenor. The electronicians’ bristling activity brings to mind a debate between opposite sides of the electrical components aisle at the hardware store, but it’s a lucid one, thoughtfully expressed on both sides.

Bill Meyer  

Ikue Mori Satoko Fujii + Natsuki Tamura — Prickly Pear Cactus (Libra)

Prickly Pear Cactus by Ikue Mori, Satoko Fujii, Natsuki Tamura

Pianist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura spent February 2020 touring Europe with their combo Kaze, which they’d augmented with the electronic musician, Ikue Mori. As lockdown wore on, they kept the connection going via Zoom chats between their abodes in Kobe and New York. After Fujii shared her experiences of trying to mic and stream her piano online, Mori suggested that she send some recordings. Mori edited what showed up and added her sounds; Tamura contributed additional elements to nearly half the tracks. Some of them are balanced to sound like live recordings, with Mori’s neon squelches and high-res, bell-like tones gathering and dispelling like real-time reactions. Others feel more overtly constructed, with the piano situated within a maelstrom of sounds like a view of a TV set turned on in a room with a party going on.  

Bill Meyer

 Phicus — Solid (Astral Spirits)

Solid by Phicus

Phicus is the Barcelona-based assemblage of Ferran Fages (electric guitar), Àlex Reviriego (double bass) and Vasco Trilla (drums). The line-up looks like a power trio, and if you heard them two seconds at a time, you might think that they were. Reviriego and Trilla each play in ways that convey a sense of motion, and Fages’ bent notes and serrated harmonics are just the sort of sounds to cap off a display of guitar heroics. But if you note that each track is named for an element or chemical compound, and that the album is called Solid, you might get a clearer idea of their concerns. This music is all about essential relationships, and its makers are more interested in making things coexist in productive ways than they are in re-enacting rituals borrowed from jazz, fusion or free improvisation. That means that even the sharpest sounds don’t hook you, nor do the fleetest charges carry you away. Phicus isn’t interested in settling for the familiar. But if you’re ready to observe that thing that looks like a duck making sounds that ducks never make, you’ll find plenty to ponder on Solid.

Bill Meyer

 Quietus — Volume Five (Ever/Never)

Volume Five by Quietus

Quietus songs unfurl like cream in coffee, spiraling curlicues of light into dark liquid drones amid clanking blocks of percussion. The songs expand in organic ways, picking up purpose in the steady pound of rhythm, strutting even, in a loose-limbed rock-soul-psych way you might recognize from Brian Jonestown Massacre’s “Anemone” or Grinderman’s “I Don’t Need You to Set Me Free,” but quieter, much quieter, and seething with submerged ideas. The words are mumbled, croaked, submerged in surface hum, but when pushed up towards the surface, arresting. “This life can be sunlit hills turned all to their angry sides,” murmurs Quietus proprietor Geoffrey Bankowski in the relatively concise “Reflex of Purpose,” which sprawls anyway, notwithstanding its 2:36 minute duration. The music’s better, though, when it’s allowed to find its slow way forward, unconforming to any pre-existing ideas of how long a pop song should be. I like the closer “Posthemmorrhagic,” the best, as guitars both tortured and prayerful intertwine, and Bankowski breathes slow, moaning poetry into a close mic, and the song revolves in three-time like the last dancer on the floor, not just tonight but forever.

Jennifer Kelly

Ritual Extra — In Luthero (Dinzu Artefacts)

In Luthero by Ritual Extra

In Luthero was performed inside an empty water cistern, and the ensuing reverberations act as microscopic versions of the grander ebb and flow within which French-Finnish trio Ritual Extra operate.  Percussionist Julien Chamla’s cymbal scrapes and tom hits form a backdrop of bomb blasts and shrieking, missives from some war-torn locale long since vacated by the populace.  Steel structures seem to groan and collapse as they are rattled by percussive ordnance. This bleak setting is given a sense of color by Lauri Hyvärinen’s acoustic guitar.  A stew of string scrapes diverges into discrete plucks, which morph into strums.  The metronomic chords are enriched as they bounce around the walls of the cistern, folding in on themselves through echo, becoming a mechanical mantra.  Tuukka Haapakorpi’s voice rises from the ashes, soaring polysyllabically yet wordlessly.  As In Luthero begins to take shape, these vocalizations are almost inhuman: whispers and gurgles that come on in waves.  Later, more anthropoid utterances take shape, yet fall just shy of coalescing into a discernable language.  Across 24 minutes, Ritual Extra musically narrate the pre-history of humankind, the primordial essence from which everything good — and bad — about us originated. 

Bryon Hayes  

 Subjective Pitch Matching Band — Twenty-One Subjectivities in Six Parts (Remote Works)  

Twenty-One Subjectivities in Six Parts by Subjective Pitch Matching Band

Chris Brian Taylor has trod a serpentine path on the journey that culminated in the creation of his first large ensemble electroacoustic composition. His roots are in punk and rave — he still DJs house and techno — but he recently shifted his gaze toward improvised electronics. Rather than stifling his ambition, COVID-19 and the ensuing lockdown encouraged him to think big: he would cast a wide net and compose a piece of music for as many people as he could get to participate. He reached out to friends, relatives, and internet acquaintances to assemble his orchestra, and borrowed the melody and chords from Pet Shop Boys’ “Being Boring” to act as the foundation of the work. Twenty people responded from a variety of musical disciplines, and all agreed to participate remotely. The composer gave each player audio cues to work with and encouraged the performers to respond subjectively. They could either stay true to the pitches provided, harmonize against them, or play ornamentally. Taylor collected the resulting tracks and structured the resulting thirty-minute piece of music based on what the respondents provided. Dense yet graceful, the composition unfolds like a slow-motion blaze. Flames of sonority form a sinuous body from which sparks of discrete sound leap heavenward. There is nary a moment of silence, as Taylor weaves a plethora of long tones together to form an undulating core over which stabs of piano, guitar and percussion materialize momentarily. Naivete didn’t keep Chris Brian Taylor from aiming as high as he could with this piece, and we are the benefactors of this ambition, rewarded with a rich and complex sonic brew to enjoy.

Bryon Hayes  

 TV Priest — Uppers (Sub Pop)

Uppers by TV Priest

TV Priest works the same corrosive, hyper-verbal furrow as Idles or, in a looser sense, the Sleaford Mods, spatter chanting harsh, literate strings of gutter poetry over a clanking post-punk cadence. The vocalist Charlie Drinkwater snarls and sputters charismatically over the clatter, a brutalist commentator on life and pop culture. The band is sharp and minimalist, drums (Ed Kelland) to the front, guitar (Alex Sprogis) stabbing hard at stripped raw riffs , bass (Nic Bueth) rumbling like mute rage in the back of the bar. And yet, though anger is a primary flavor, these songs surge with triumph as in the wall-shaking cadences of “Press Gang,” the blistering sarcasm of “The Big Curve.” This is a relatively new band, their first and only tour cut short at one gig by the lockdown, but the songs are tight as hell on record and likely to pin you to the back wall live. “Bad news, like buses, comes in twos,” intones Drinkwater on theclearly autobiographical “Journal of a Plague Year” against an irregular post-everything clangor, loose and disdainful and hardly arsed to entertain us; it’s as fitting an anthem as any for our lost 2020. But when band gets moving, as on the chugging, corroscating “Decoration,” it’s unstoppable, a monstrous thing bursting “through to the next round.” Sure, I’ll have another.

Jennifer Kelly

Voice Imitator — Plaza (12XU)

Plaza by Voice Imitator

Voice Imitator, from Melbourne, Australia, rips a hard punk vortex through its songs, ratcheting up the drums to battering ram violence, blistering the guitar sound and scrawling wild metallic vocals over it all, with nods to noisy post-hardcore bands like the Jesus Lizard and McClusky. “A Small Cauliflower” takes things down to a seething, menacing whisper, Mark Groves, the singer, presiding over an uneasy mesh of tamped down dissonance and hustle. “Adult Performer” is faster and more limber, all clicking urgency and sudden bursts of detuned, surging squall. All four members—that’s Per Bystrom, Justin Fuller, Groves and Leon O’Regan—have been in a ton of other bands, and the sounds they make here have the rupturing precision of well-honed violence. If you like Protomartyr but wish it was lots louder and more corrosive, here you go.

Jennifer Kelly

 Sam Weinberg / Henry Fraser / Weasel Walter — Grist (Ugexplode)

Grist by Sam Weinberg / Henry Fraser / Weasel Walter

Ornette Coleman once called a record In All Languages; these guys ought call one Any And All Possibilities. Saxophonist Sam Weinberg, bassist Henry Fraser and drummer (this time, anyway) Weasel Walter are scrupulous student of improvisation in all its guises, and they’re ready and able to use what they know. You could call it free jazz, for they certainly know how that stuff works, but they’re under no obligation to swing; that’d be a limit, you see. This music bursts, darts, expands and contracts in a sequence of second by second negotiations of shape and velocity.

Bill Meyer  

 Chris Weisman — Closer Tuning (Self-Released)

Closer Tuning by Chris Weisman

Chris Weisman is a Brattleboro, VT songwriter, in the general orbit (not a member but seems to know a bunch of them) of the late, great Feathers and one-time member of Kyle Thomas’ other outfit, the fuzz pop band Happy Birthday. A shunner of all sorts of limelight, he is nonetheless very productive. Closer Tuning is one of five albums he home recorded and released in 2020. You might expect a certain lo-fi folksiness and there is, indeed, a dream-y, soft focus rusticity to the tangled acoustic guitar jangle, the blunt down home-i-ness lyrics. And yet, there’s a good deal more than that in Closer Tuning. The chords progress softly, gently but in unexpected ways, a reminder of Weisman’s jazz guitar training, and the sound is warm and enveloping and every so slightly off-kilter, as if filtered through someone else’s memory. Cuts like “Petit Revolution,” with its close shroud of harmonies, its eerie, antic guitar cadence, feel like Beach Boys psychedelia left out in the garden to sprout, or more to the point, like Wendy Eisenberg’s brainy, left-of-center pop puzzles. “My Talent” is hedged in with blooming bent notes and scrambling string scratches, but its center is radiant, weird, astral folk along the lines of Alexander Tucker. “Hey,” says Weisman, in its slow dreaming chorus, “I gave my talent away.” Lucky us.

 A.A. Williams — Forever Blue (Bella Union)

There’s a dim and shadowy corner where heavy music, orchestral music and post-rock all meet, and A.A. Williams’ music resides there as naturally as anyone else’s. That’s what you might expect when you get a professional cellist who fell hard for metal as a teenager and then started writing songs after finding a guitar on the street. After an EP her first LP is the kind of assured, consistently strong debut that balances calmly measured beauty with the kind of crushing peaks that give that sometimes hoary quiet/loud dynamic a good name. At its best, like the opening “All I Asked For (Was to End it All)” and “Dirt” (featuring vocals from Wild Beasts’ Tom Fleming), Forever Blue is as gothically ravishing as you could hope for, and by the time it ends with spectral lament “I’m Fine” it might tempt even those not traditionally inclined that way to don the ceremonial black eyeliner.  

Ian Mathers

[burlveneer-music]

One Small Step - Gol Variations - in which a tap dancer is an integral part of an improvising trio (and not just novelty dressing on a perfunctory big band album)

Here it finally is, the debut album of this unique Norwegian improv trio One Small Step, with tap dancer Janne Eraker (Rhythm is a Dancer, Øy), fiddle player Vegar Vårdal (Breibeint, Rusk) and Clean Feed bass player Roger Arntzen (Chrome Hill, Ballrogg). They started out as a tap / double bass duo when Janne was based in Rotterdam back in 2011, and Roger provided the harmonic base of the duo. When Vegar came along in 2016 they started the process of evolving their combined tap-string sound, leading up to their first album, recorded in the middle of the pandemic in 2021. One Small Step joined forced with sound engineer Audun Strype and video fotographer Jørn Stenersen and booked a temporary closed stave church in Oslo - the beautiful Stave Church from Gol, located at the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. The stave church is approximately from 1200, and was preserved from Gol when they wanted to build a new church around 1880. The amazing church, which has an fantastic interior and its amazing sounding old floor board, made Janne’s tap dance sound out of this world. The trio spent a full day at the church, recording and filming for hours, and the result is comprised into these four epic album tracks. Janne Eraker tap dance Vegar Vårdal fiddle, vocal Roger Arntzen double bass All music is improvised by One Small Step

[riffsstrides]

Ballrogg · Ciranda 

6 de Maio, 22.00h

Casa da Música, Porto

Ballrogg

Klaus Ellerhusen Holm clarinetes

Roger Arntzen contrabaixo

Ivar Grydeland pedal steel guitar, guitarra eléctrica, guitarra acústica, banjo e caixa de ritmos

Ciranda

Gileno Santana trompete

Inês Vaz acordeão

[freethejazzblog]

Free The Jazz #14 [for Rick Remender]

1 - Michael Zerang & The Blue Lights - Dancing for Cigarettes (from "Songs From the Big Book of Love", 2015 Pink Palace)

2 - Cortex - Opening (from "Live!", 2014 Clean Feed)

3 - Tim Berne's Snakeoil - Son Of Not So Sure (from "Shadow Man", 2013 ECM)

4 - Ivo Perelman / Matthew Shipp / Michael Bisio / Whit Dickey - Landscape (from "Soul", 2016 Leo)

5 - Charles Mingus - What Love (from "Presents Charles Mingus", 1961 Candid)

6 - Ballrogg - Abaft (from "Abaft the Beam", 2017 Clean Feed)

7 - Defibrillator & Peter Brötzmann - Uterine Prolapse (from "Conversations About Not Eating Meat", 2016 Border of Silence)

8 - Donald Byrd - Requiem (from "Royal Flush", 1962 Blue Note)

9 - Nate Wooley / Ken Vandermark - Done Left Here (from "All Directions Home", 2015 Audiographic)

Listen to a new show each week on 8K, and find previous shows over at Mixcloud.

[diyeipetea]

HDO 0234 - Clean Feed 2017 (I): Gorilla Mask, Lisa Mezzacappa, Carlos Bica & Azul, Ballrogg, Velkro [Podcast]

HDO 0234 – Clean Feed 2017 (I): Gorilla Mask, Lisa Mezzacappa, Carlos Bica & Azul, Ballrogg, Velkro [Podcast]

HDO 234, del 7 de febrero de 2017, está dedicado a escuchar las cinco últimas incorporaciones al catálogo del sello Clean Feed: Iron Lung del trío Gorilla Mask, avantNOIR de Lisa Mezzacappa, More Than This de Carlos Bica & Azul, Abaft The Beam de Ballrogg y Too Lazy To Panic de Velkro.

Tomajazz: ©Pachi Tapiz, 2017

HDO es un podcast editado, presentado y producido por Pachi Tapiz

Gorilla Mask: Ir…

[noloveforned]

no love for ned airs on wlur in an hour. the erratic end of the year schedule may start as soon as next week- i'm hopefully headed to richmond for bedouine and howard ivans next wednesday and then the holidays hit so there will likely only be a few more shows left before we call it a year!

no love for ned on wlur – novemeber 1st, 2017 from 5-7pm

artist // track // album // label eels // mr. e's beautiful blues // daisies of the galaxy // dreamworks self care // sorry // self care // velvet blue music * david west // morning rain // cherry on willow // tough love fever dream // clear mind // squid // club ac30 swim team // are you forgetting something? // holiday cassette // (self-released) half forward line // one one // the back of mass // jigsaw positive no // y.a.a.y.y. // partners in the wild // little black cloud flat worms // accelerated // flat worms // castle face * cool flowers // take it or leave it // demo life of cool flowers // (self-released) food and money // reruns // 1979-1982 // alona's dream melkbelly // kid kreative // nothing valley // wax nine * dark thoughts // i won't say nothin' // dark thoughts // stupid bag gøggs // billy is a runaway // she got harder 7" // in the red peter brötzmann, william parker and hamid drake // half-hearted beast // never too late but always too early // eremite ballrogg // abaft // abaft the beam // clean feed carlton melton // simmer // aground ep // agitated thuja // (untitled six) // pine cone temples // strange attractors audio house dmitry evgrafov // tamas // comprehension of light // 130701 terje isungset and arve henriksen // vassluke // the art of irrigation // all ice ka baird // tok tru // sapropelic pycnic // drag city carla dal forno // clusters // the garden ep // blackest ever black sativa flats // cha cha // sativa flats cassette // moon glyph john bender // 35a9 // i don't remember now // i don't want to talk about it // superior viaduct destroyer // tinseltown swimming in blood // ken // merge * water world // what am i supposed to find // more colour cassette // life dunk international pale spectres // bicycles // d[r]iving 7" // cloudberry soft pastels // avoid the fears // no loss cassette // sination elva // tailwind // tailwind 7" // where it's at is where you are remambran // how can i see // peace child music // (self-released) cherry // dumbness // dumbness // lame-o * the cannanes // move some things around // a love affair with nature // chapter music

* denotes music on wlur’s playlist

[podilatokafe]

awesome jazz: Ballrogg – Insomnia (2010) Πηγή: awesome jazz: Ballrogg - Insomnia (2010)

[jazzismus]

"About chamber music in a free jazz form"

Ballrogg @ SuperDeluxe, Tokyo / Test Tone Vol.75 (by EigenKino).

[riffsstrides]

Ballrogg 

30 de Março, 21.30h, Culturgest, Lisboa

31 de Março, 21.30h, CAE, Portalegre

Klaus Ellerhusen Holm - Saxofones, clarinete, field recordings

Roger Arntzen -  Contrabaixo

David Stackenäs - Guitarra

[riffsstrides]

14º Portalegre JazzFest 2017

Na sua 14ª edição, o Portalegre JazzFest volta a abrir o seu programa à diversidade do jazz dos nossos dias, tendo como único denominador comum dos vários projectos apresentados precisamente a sua contemporaneidade. São muitas as pontes estabelecidas pelas formações que vão actuar no CAEP – do jazz com a sua própria história e com uma ideia de futuro, do jazz com a pop, a folk, a música clássica contemporânea, a música livremente improvisada, o rock e o mais que venha a propósito ou mesmo a despropósito, sem tabus. Se o segundo fim-de-semana do festival é dedicado à cena norueguesa, com projectos fortes como Ballrogg e Friends & Neighbors, o jazz nacional marca igualmente uma relevante presença. A parceria entre João Hasselberg e Pedro Branco tem levantado algumas consideráveis ondas por onde passa e a que junta Pedro Sousa e Gabriel Ferrandini vai fazer-se sentir nas próprias ruas de Portalegre, pois irá tocar para os transeuntes, sem se fazer anunciar. Como é de tradição, com todo este jazz chegam provas de vinhos e produtos regionais, na ideia de que alimentar os ouvidos funciona melhor quando também há uns petiscos para o estômago e uma boa pinga do Alentejo.

24 MAR. SEX. 21.30H Shelter 14º Portalegre JazzFest | GA | 6 € / Passe 20 € (com oferta de 4 CDs) | M/4 anos

NATE WOOLEY Trompete KEN VANDERMARK Saxofones tenor e barítono, clarinete JASPER STADHOUDERS Baixo elétrico e guitarra STEVE HEATHER Bateria

O projeto Shelter é apresentado pelos seus músicos como "o som do futuro, agora". E assim é de facto, ainda que as premissas da música que tocam venham do passado. Estão elas no free jazz mais vernacular (aquele da transição da década de 1950 para a de 60 e que teve Ornette Coleman como principal arquiteto), e no pós-punk dos anos 1980, representado por bandas como This Heat ou The Fall.

O grupo é novo, mas decorre de uma série de cumplicidades anteriores e paralelas à sua constituição. Wooley e Vandermark (este no seu regresso ao Jazzfest), têm um duo desde 2013, já com dois álbuns editados. Vandermark e Stadhouders trabalham juntos nos Made to Break desde 2014, e o rasto que este coletivo está a deixar teve no início de 2017 o seu quinto disco. Por sua vez, Heather contribui decisivamente para o International Improv Ensemble, de Jasper Stadhouders (do qual, acrescente-se a título de curiosidade, faz parte o português Luís Vicente). Ou seja, se a fórmula Shelter está fresca ainda, beneficia do sólido conhecimento que os seus promotores têm uns dos outros, e daí que cada um pareça adivinhar o que os demais vão fazer a seguir. Energia, liberdade e arrebatamento são as palavras-chave para descrever a música elétrica e cheia de riffs destes quatro magníficos.

25 MAR. SÁB. 21.30H João Hasselberg & Pedro Branco 14º Portalegre JazzFest | GA | 6 € / Passe 20 € (com oferta de 4 CDs) | M/4 anos

JOÃO HASSELBERG Contrabaixo e baixo eléctrico PEDRO BRANCO Guitarra AFONSO CABRAL Voz ALBERT CIRERA saxofone JOÃO PAULO ESTEVES DA SILVA Piano JOÃO LENCASTRE Bateria

A revista online norte-americana All About Jazz escreveu sobre o álbum "Dancing Our Way to Death" que é difícil definir a música que nele é tocada. Tenta a designação "jazz de câmara", à falta de melhor rótulo, acrescentando ainda que o disco tem tanto de folk e de rock quanto de jazz, em linha, de resto, com o que ouvimos nos mais recentes projetos de João Hasselberg e Pedro Branco. E o que ouvimos interseta a tradição do jazz, aceita contributos da música dita clássica, incorpora o formato da canção popular e atravessa tudo isso com uma atitude renovadora a que não é estranho um conhecimento das vanguardas do jazz e de outras músicas urbanas do nosso tempo.

Diz esta parceria de músicos de Lisboa que a sua premissa foi, e é, "não excluir nenhum caminho interpretativo à partida". E acrescenta: "tentámos ter presente uma liberdade entre nós dois, durante a criação e a execução, e ao mesmo tempo passá-la aos outros músicos que convidámos para esta aventura". No palco, com eles, estará a maior parte do grupo que os acompanhou no estúdio, designadamente Afonso Cabral, Albert Cirera, João Paulo Esteves da Silva (de volta ao Jazzfest) e João Lencastre, todos eles conhecidos por não terem uma visão monolítica do jazz. Ou seja, a música que se vai ouvir ao vivo, tal como no CD, desfez-se de preconceitos e ganhou originalidade.

24 e 25 MAR. SEX e SÁB. 23.30H PeterGabriel 14º Portalegre JazzFest | Bar Gémeos | Entrada Livre | M/12 anos

PEDRO SOUSA Saxofone tenor GABRIEL FERRANDINI Bateria

O duo de Pedro Sousa e Gabriel Ferrandini existe praticamente desde a adolescência de ambos os músicos, quando se conheceram na linha de Cascais e começaram a ouvir discos e a tocar juntos. Se mais tarde cada um deles seguiu o seu próprio caminho (Sousa entregando-se à eletrónica, com o projecto OTO, partilhado com outro amigo de juventude que também ganhou projecção pública, Pedro Lopes; e Ferrandini, aterrando no jazz e na música livremente improvisada do Red Trio e do Motion Trio, de Rodrigo Amado, depois de ter experimentado o punk, o ska, a bossa nova e mais). O certo é que, volta e meia, foi surgindo a oportunidade de voltarem a essa célula de trabalho original, a primeira de todas. O nome PeterGabriel para os identificar surgiu entretanto, e com uma tónica de ironia. Não que o universo do antigo vocalista dos Genesis estivesse assim tão fora do seu alcance. Pedro e Gabriel fizeram concertos e gravaram discos com Thurston Moore, fundador dos lendários Sonic Youth, e com Johan Berthling, membro da banda de culto sueca Tape.

Pelo caminho, Pedro Sousa trocou o sampling e a guitarra elétrica dos seus inícios pelos saxofones, formulando uma linguagem herdeira das de Peter Brotzmann e Mats Gustafsson, com incorporação das técnicas extensivas e de respiração circular, que definem as novíssimas correntes da improvisação experimental (chegou a ter lições de Jean-Luc Guionnet); e Gabriel Ferrandini estabeleceu uma abordagem muito pessoal da bateria, toda ela feita de texturas e dinâmicas desenfreadas. O jazz é o seu chão comum, mas no que fazem estão todas as músicas que também amam, para além do jazz, indo da MPB ao hip-hop alternativo, com tudo o que se pode imaginar pelo meio. Só que não é fácil reconhecer cada uma, tão misturadas ficam e tão sem casca, sem aparência, porque o que lhes interessa é mergulhar fundo no miolo do som.

31 MAR. SEX. 21.30H BALLROGG 14º Portalegre JazzFest | GA | 6 € / Passe 20 € (com oferta de 4 CDs) | M/4 anos

KLAUS ELLERHUSEN HOLM Saxofones, clarinete & field recordings ROGER ARNTZEN Contrabaixo DAVID STACKENÄS Guitarra

Num tempo de misturas de linguagens musicais, o trio Ballrogg não só está em linha com a tendência geral, como leva esta a desfechos que, expostos em papel, parecem improváveis. A música tocada por Klaus Ellerhusen Holm, Roger Arntzen e David Stackenäs pode ser descrita como a combinação do tipo de jazz elaborado, mas aberto, cunhado por figuras históricas como Eric Dolphy e Paul Bley, com a new music não-linear e indeterminista de um Morton Feldman e aquilo a que se convencionou chamar de Americana, associando em si folk, country e blues.

Todas estas referências vêm do outro lado do Atlântico, mas juntas, e da maneira como as ouvimos, têm o traço distintivo da música criativa que nos dias de hoje está a ser praticada na Escandinávia – tanto assim que ninguém mais no mundo poderia fazer com que algo assim de tão bizarro resultasse tão natural. Não surpreende, aliás, que um dos discos deste grupo tenha como título "Swedish Country". Mas há mais nos temas dos Ballrogg, para além destas coordenadas, evitando a formulação de uma simples receita pronta a ser indefinidamente reproduzida: algumas situações musicais têm um formato neoclássico, lembrando os Clogs, e outras ganham uma dimensão eletroacústica com características ambientais e de paisagismo sonoro que nos remete para Philip Jeck.

1 ABR. SÁB. 21.30H Friends and Neighbors 14º Portalegre JazzFest | GA | 6 € / Passe 20 € (com oferta de 4 CDs) | M/4 anos

ANDRÉ ROLIGHETEN Saxofone tenor e clarinetes THOMAS JOHANSSON Trompete OSCAR GRÖNBERG Piano JON RUNE STRØM Contrabaixo TOLLEF ØSTVANG Bateria

Quando muitos defendem que o free jazz não pode ser melódico, os Friends & Neighbors fazem o contrário. E quando se espalha a noção de que homenagear os grandes nomes dessa corrente histórica do jazz, designadamente Ornette Coleman (a quem pilharam o nome do grupo), Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders e John Carter, impede que se toque uma música própria dos nossos dias, os noruegueses André Roligheten, Thomas Johansson, Oscar Grönberg, Jon Rune Strøm e Tollef Østvang provam o contrário. Em poucos casos, como o deste projeto vindo da Escandinávia, se pode dizer que a música do presente é feita com um ouvido no passado e o outro no futuro.

O neo/pós-free jazz dos Friends & Neighbors professa uma ideologia coletivista, em que os indivíduos que o criam têm espaço para encontrar a sua liberdade pessoal. Podem todos estar harmolodicamente combinados, à maneira de Coleman, mas este quinteto é na realidade a soma dos que o integram. Quando é a diminuição que se decide, por subtração de vozes em determinadas passagens, permanece a identidade do conjunto. Este procedimento resulta numa música que é livre de facto, mas flui com a cadência permanente de um rio. Improvisar, com estes músicos, não é deixar as coisas ao acaso e sim tornar o acaso numa forma de determinação.

31 MAR e 1 ABR. SEX e SÁB. 23.30H Party Knüllers 14º Portalegre JazzFest | Bar Clube Lounge | Entrada Livre | M/12 anos

FRED LONBERG-HOLM Violoncelo, guitarra, eletrónica STÅLE LIAVIK Bateria

Party Knüllers, assim se chama o duo de jazz de "garagem" e experimental formado por Fred Lonberg-Holm, uma das figuras de proa da cena de Chicago, e por Ståle Liavik, uma das forças motrizes da improvisação norueguesa, caracterizado por "uma obsessiva e divertida necessidade de inventar e explorar novos sons e novas formas de comunicação musical", segundo a imprensa especializada. A abordagem que Lonberg-Holm faz do violoncelo já foi comparada com o que faz Thurston Moore, o guitarrista dos já defuntos Sonic Youth (que vêm introduzindo no rock um enorme fascínio pelo free jazz). Como este, o seu estilo pessoal é rico em harmónicos fragmentados, proporcionados pelo uso extensivo do pedal de distorção e pela eletrónica. Liavik é, pelo seu lado, conhecido por dar tensão às situações musicais em que se insere, por meio do seu entendimento fragmentário do ritmo e da percussão.

Se a dupla é nova, as colaborações entre estes músicos vêm de trás, quando ambos tocavam nos VCDC, de Frode Gjerstad e Stine Janvin-Motland, nos Gorilla Ass Piano, de Per Zanussi e em formações de Keefe Jackson e Jim Baker. Neste jazz do século XXI, cabem o rock, a música de dança, a improvisação livre e muito mais, ou não fossem esses os ingredientes do entendimento jazz, tanto em Chicago como em Oslo, cidades de referência da atual música criativa. Só músicos como estes poderiam ter tocado tanto com os Wilco (Lonberg-Holm), como com Phil Minton (Liavik).

[podilatokafe]

Republic of Jazz: Ballrogg: Klaus Ellerhusen Holm | Roger Arntzen | Ivar Grydeland – Abaft the Beam (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2017) Πηγή: Republic of Jazz: Ballrogg: Klaus Ellerhusen Holm | Roger Arntzen | Ivar Grydeland - Abaft the Beam (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2017)