#Hubro Records

[donospl]

Co w jazzie piszczy [sezon 2 odcinek 26]

premierowa emisja 24 lipca 2024 – 18:00 Graliśmy: Brad Mehldau “Nocturne” z albumu  “Apres Faure” – Nonesuch Records  Brad Mehldau “Between Bach” z albumu “After Bach II” – Nonesuch Records  Liva Dumpe “Sonata No 1. in G major”  z albumu “Tālskatis” Sarah Hanahan “Welcome” z albumu “Among Giants” – Blue Engine Records Ivanna Cuesta “Chaos” z albumu „A Letter to the Earth” – Orenda…

[himeraturku]

Himera esittää: Atte Elias Kantonen, Livia Schweizer, Michael Pisaro-Liu

Lauantai / Saturday 18.5. 19:00 (ovet/doors 18:30)

Tehdasteatterin Jokistudio

Liput 8/5€

Ohjelma / Program:

Atte Elias Kantonen - solo electronics

Livia Schweizer - within (1) for solo flute by Michael Pisaro-Liu

Atte Elias Kantonen

Atte Elias Kantonen (b. 1992) is a Helsinki, Finland -based sound designer, sonic artist and composer working mostly in the fields of experimental music and contemporary performing arts. 

The aim of Kantonen’s sounding discipline is to sculpt sound into delicate forms that are constantly affected by a kind of mutant nature encompassing a variety of tones – ranging from glassy to organismic, earthly to ethereal. Kantonen’s composing process consists of creating sonic events that play with the idea of form, space and time as having incessant elasticity. When it comes to designing sound for a performance, Kantonen incorporates spatial and electro-mechanical layers to his designs, ranging from unconventional speaker arrangements to sounding kinetic sculptures. 

Kantonen has a conceptual side project “ant spa ·)((“, which currently consists of a monthly experimental music radio show on IDA radio and experimental music and sound performance event edition “bugbath”. His work has been supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland and Music Foundation Finland and for the year 2024 by the Kone foundation.

Livia Schweizer

Livia Schweizer (b.1994) is a flutist, improvisor, educator and artistic researcher based in Helsinki. She is known for her interest in improvisation and non-conventional music notation as a tool of bringing together creative souls from different backgrounds, ages and cultures.

Livia grew up in Tuscany and has lived in Finland since 2014. Since moving to Helsinki Livia has been performing solo and in chamber ensembles for festivals such as the Flow Festival, Helsingin Juhlaviikot, the UNM Festival, Tulkinnanvaraista, Luosto Soi, Uuden Musiikin Lokakuu, Jauna Muzika (Lithuania), SoundScapes (Germany), Hiljaisuus Festival and Musica Nova. Her passion towards contemporary and experimental music brought her to be part in several projects with the NYKY-ensemble, Avanti!, Korvat Auki, the UMUU-ensemble, Eloa ry and Tampering, and in 2021 she became member of the Earth Ears Ensemble, an ensemble focused on contemporary music from lesser heard voices.

Michael Pisaro-Liu

Michael Pisaro-Liu (born, Michael Pisaro, 1961 in Buffalo, New York) is a guitarist and composer and a long-time member of the Wandelweiser collective. While, like other members of Wandelweiser, Pisaro-Liu is known for pieces of long duration with periods of silence, in the past fifteen years his work has branched out in many directions, including work with field recording, electronics, improvisation and ensembles of very different kinds of instrumental constitution.

Pisaro-Liu has a long-standing collaboration with percussionist Greg Stuart, with over thirty collaborations (pieces and recordings) to date, including their 3-disc set, Continuum Unbound from 2014 and Umbra & Penumbra for amplified percussion and orchestra premiered by the La Jolla Symphony in February, 2020. Pisaro-Liu also has recurring (intermittent) duos with Christian Wolff, Keith Rowe, Taku Sugimoto, Antoine Beuger, Graham Lambkin, Toshiya Tsunoda and Reinier van Houdt. There are several recent compositions for orchestras of various kinds and constitutions – including commissioned work for the BBC Scottish Symphony, INSUB MetaOrchestra and the Grand Orchestre de Muzzix. Much of his current work takes the form of mixed-media assemblages, in collaboration with filmmaker/artist/writer Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Pisaro-Liu.

Recordings of his music have been released by Edition Wandelweiser Records, erstwhile records, New World Records, elsewhere music, Hubro, Potlatch, another timbre, meena/ftarri, Senufo Editions, Intonema, winds measure, HEM Berlin and on Pisaro's own imprint, Gravity Wave. His work is regularly performed throughout the US, Europe, South America and Southeast Asia. 

 Pisaro-Liu is the Director of Composition and Experimental Music the California Institute of the Arts.

within (1)

for solo flute

within is a series of six pieces for solo instrument, that were written for the 3-year project at the Zionskirche in Berlin, organized by Wandelweiser members, Carlo Inderhees and Christoph Nicolaus from 1997 to 1999. (3 Jahre - 156 Musikalische Ereignisse - eine Skulptur). It featured the premiere of a 10 minute piece every Tuesday at 7:30pm in the choir balcony of the church. (There were eventually about 30 composers involved in the project.)  “within (1)” for solo flute, was the first piece performed on the series, in January, 1997. Eventually all six of the 10-minute sections were played the church.

The piece is built upon the individual colors of single flute tones. A tone is played once or repeated a number of times before moving to the next. Because of the sustained impression of the single tone, it functions like a “plateau”, whose level changes when the next note occurs (always following a silence). It is a slow moving, glacial, melodic landscape.

[musicollage]

Kim Myhr + Australian Art... – Vesper. Hubro : 2020.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 5, Number 13

Junius Paul

It’s our last Dust of the year, written in an odd holding period between the flood of fall releases and the first few indicators that 2020 will, indeed, have music. We’ll be revisiting our favorite records one more time in writers’ year-end essays and hitting a few more obscurities in an upcoming, clear-the-decks January Dust. Then it’s time to say goodbye to a year that sucked on so many levels, but not in the music.  This time, contributors included Justin Cober-Lake, Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Andrew Forell, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers, Ray Garraty and Tim Clarke.  

Brian Shankar Adler — Fourth Dimension (Chant)

Percussionist Brian Shankar Adler has a funny way of looking at the world. Or, rather, he has a funny way of looking through it. His Fourth Dimension seeks a new perspective, a new way to ask questions. Instead of trying to find new ground through abstract experimentation, he works his way into patterns and shapes that build on each other. The album opens with “Introduction Drone,” but that sort of minimalist composition provides only one small element of Adler's larger idea. He and his group glide between silent or repetitive space and more melodic, energetic bursts. The whole album, then, takes on an irregular but not erratic pulse. Vibraphonist Matt Moran provides an essential element of the disc's feel. Each artist in the quintet contributes — guitarist Joanthan Goldberger shapes particular moods, for example — but it's Moran's vibes that dictate how far the record pushes into new space. He sometimes disappears and sometimes flourishes. These movements, as much as even Adler's drumming, give the disc its musical arc and particular spot, whatever dimension you may find it in.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Angles 9 — Beyond Us (Clean Feed)

When a musician is as prolific and diverse in approach as Martin Küchen, it’s tempting to consider how each new recording fits into or extends his existing body of work. But Beyond Us often directs the listener’s attention away from Küchen and towards the skills of the eight musicians accompanying him. This is probably by design, since when you have such great players, you might as well give them chances to shine. Their collective associations extend beyond this band, which has managed to defy the prevailing economic tides in order to tour and record repeatedly over the past decade; you can also hear some of them in Paal Nilssen-Love’s Extra Large Unit and the Fire! Orchestra. Whether they’re enriching his arrangements with nuanced and energetic playing, or swinging and exulting during solos and duo exchanges, the rest of Angles 9 sound simply marvelous. In particular, trombonist Mats Älekint, cornetist Goran Kajfeš and pianist Alexander Zethson draw out the robust bluesiness of “U(n)happiez Marriages,” and baritone saxophonist proposes a Moorish counterpoint to the John Barry-ish theme of “Against the Permanent Revolution.” But everyone punches above their weight, making this a deeply satisfying addition to their collective catalogues.

Bill Meyer

 Bach Tang — Born Too Alive (Dove Cove)

Bach Tang - Born Too Alive by Bach Tang

LA-based trio Bach Tang — that’s Oakley Tapola on voice and guitar, Dan Ryan on bass and vocals, Rebecca Spangenthaler on drums — channel the chaotic energy of Swell Maps, The Raincoats and Essential Logic on their EP Born Too Alive.  This ten-minute, six-song collection combines mutant Beefheartian boogie, defiant DIY post-punk clatter, deliberately distorted vocals and gleefully amateurish noise into a willful concoction that dares you to turn it down whilst forcing you to turn it up.  Opening track “Litter Licker” is a perfect 59 seconds of racing down a hill — tumbling drums, tripping bass, guitar slashes, what sounds at first like classic fucked up sax skronking revealing itself to be the exhalations of an exhausted runner. “Dragon’s Blood!” is most straight ahead song here with a recognizable riff and even some harmonizing before it briefly collapses in on itself before a final burst to a groaning end. Bach Tang understand that brevity is the soul of wit and if the vocals can be grating, the songs flash by with enough invention to encourage repeat listens. Fans of the aforementioned bands and their ilk will find much to be intrigued by on Born Too Alive.

Andrew Forell  

 The Catenary Wires — Til the Morning (Tapete)

Til The Morning by The Catenary Wires

The Catenary Wires — that’s Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey — make a lovely, wistful sort of indie pop that is perfectly in line with what you’d expect from people who were in Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, Marine Research and Tender Trap. This is their second album as Catenary Wires, but they’ve been at this sunshine-through-raindrops thing for a while, and the result is not exactly polish but casual grace. They seem to land exactly where they need to, every time, without much premeditation. “Dream Town,” the opener, brushes by with a reticent sureness, Fletcher’s airy soprano harmonizing with Pursey’s hollow, post-punk resonances, the whole thing stirred to gentle life with finger snaps and lilting, wafting background vocals. “Half-Written” (Fletcher leading) is nakedly spare in the verse, but blows into waltz-timed, multi-voiced crescendo in the chorus. Neither voice is perfectly tuned, but they join somehow in worn-in, comfortable harmonies like they’ve been doing it forever, and they have.

Jennifer Kelly

 Drekka — Beings of ImberIndus (Somnimage)  

Beings of ImberIndus by Drekka

Mkl Anderson (pronounced Michael) has been hanging onto the edge of outbound sound since the mid-1990s. During that time, he’s run the Bluesanct label, played in Jessica Bailiff’s band, and played both solo and collaboratively under the name Drekka. While he often releases music digitally, his production means are primarily analog. Anderson made this 70-minute expanse of non-electronic drone with Icelandic musician þórir Georg, and while between then they play pitch pipe, voice, metal, and bass guitar, what comes out of the speakers sounds long, dark, and entirely non-instrumental. This CD burrows deep into the heart of a sonic black sun, and if you thrive on not seeing the horizon, it could be your next auditory weighted blanket.

Bill Meyer

 Lucas Gillan’s Many Blessings — Chit-Chatting With Herbie (Jerujazz Records)

Chit-Chatting With Herbie by Lucas Gillan's Many Blessings

The Jazz Record Art Collective is a concert series that recruits Chicagoan jazz musicians to perform a classic jazz album their way. Chit-Chatting With Herbie originated when series curator Chris Anderson commissioned drummer Lucas Gillan to participate. Gillan decided to use his band Many Blessings to provide a personal angle on Herbie Nichols Trio (Blue Note, 1956). Since Many Blessings is a piano-less quartet (with Quentin Coaxum, trumpet; Jim Schram, tenor saxophone; Daniel Thatcher, bass) and Nichols was a pianist who never recorded with horns, there’s room for interpretation. Since both horn players are pretty fluent, you never miss the chordal instrument. And since Gillan values Nichols’ delightful melodies, which shine with good humor, spirit and form transcend instrumentation. But be careful playing this record, because it’s bound to make you smile a lot. And like mom said, your face might get stuck that way.

Bill Meyer

 Frode Haltli — Border Woods (Hubro)

Border Woods by Frode Haltli

In the woods, it’s not always easy to see where the borders lie. That zone of uncertainty is exactly where Norwegian accordionist situates this project. Not only does he include a Swede, nyckelharpa (a Swedish keyed fiddle) player Emilia Amper, to join his otherwise Norwegian ensemble. The music itself occupies a shadowy terrain in which classical composition from different centuries mixes with Norwegian folk themes and the squeezebox-rich atmosphere of pre-rock continental café music. Percussionists Håken Stene and Eirik Raude are equally adept at Steve Reich-like mallet patterns and bowed metal atmospherics, which operate as a backdrop for Amper and Haltli’s stark and moody melodies.

Bill Meyer

 Matt Jencik — Dream Character (Hands in the Dark)

Dream Character by Matt Jencik

Implodes’ guitarist Matt Jencik applied thickly fuzzed-out and massively reverbed guitarscapes to Black Earth and Recurring Dream, the band’s two excellent albums for Kranky. On Jencik’s 2017 solo debut, Weird Times, stripping away Implodes’ vocals and post-punk-leaning rhythm section left his guitar to roam like a wraith, swathed in static, tracing simple yet affecting arcs against a turbulent backdrop of noisy guitar loops. Ambient rock, if you will. On his new album, Dream Character, his instrumental palette has expanded to include bass and keys (not that the sound sources are especially easy to discern), but his aesthetic focus remains as tight as ever. The result is hypnotic, offering a satisfyingly rich blend of tones with just enough movement to keep the listener entranced. While Jencik is clearly venturing into shadowy realms — signposted by song titles such as “Dead Comet Return,” “Night Gallery Pause” and “Lifeless Body Train Ride” — there’s often a shaft of light cast into the gloom, whether via brighter tones or intervals. The final track asks “R U OK” — like most music of this kind, it offers a reassuringly melancholy blanket of sound within which to take refuge.

Tim Clarke

 Pedro Kastelijns — Som das Luzis (OAR!)

Som das Luzis by Pedro Kastelijns

Pedro Kastelijns hails from the same trippy Brazilian scene as Boogarins, and likewise, favors a brightly colored, soft-focus form of psychedelia that evokes Love, Os Mutantes and early aughts Animal Collective. A few cuts — “Olhos da Raposa,” for instance — tap into a beachy bossa nova vibe in the languid guitars and junk yard percussion. Others feel less rooted in place, and touched by an arch, fog-fuzzed indie rock exuberance (“Som das Luzis,” “Flux Estelar”) that brings to mind Ariel Pink. Kastelijns sings in a wobbly falsetto much of the time, and accompanies himself on very DIY sounding drums, guitars and keyboards, and there isn’t an indelible hook on the disc, despite the aspirational “Pop Gem” titles of two of the cuts. Listening is a little like being stoned—that is, pleasant, mildly disorienting and hard to remember afterwards.

Jennifer Kelly

 Julian Loida — Wallflower (Julian Loida)

Wallflower by Julian Loida

Gateway experiences are often remembered with mild embarrassment; just because something pointed you in a particular direction doesn’t mean it’s the best example you’re ever going to hear. Julian Loida’s Wallflower might serve as a gateway to minimalism and contemporary composed percussion. Its ten pieces, which are mostly constructed around repetitive vibraphone and piano figure, are unfailingly melodic. The compositions are succinct and unmarred with sudden changes, ensuring that listeners will not be taxed or distracted over each one’s course. Nor is he going to throw you off with extended techniques; he’s quite comfortable working with the vibraphone’s familiar, dreamy zone. But while he’s not going to wear anyone out, he doesn’t talk down to anyone, either. This music communicates directly, and it feels sincere in its simplicity. Gift it to the teenaged symphonic percussionist or budding ambient listener in your life.

Bill Meyer  

 Aurora Nealand / Steve Marquette / Anton Hatwich / Paul Thibodeaux — Kobra Quartet (Astral Spirits)

Kobra Quartet by Aurora Nealand / Steve Marquette / Anton Hatwich / Paul Thibodeaux

Around a century back, jazz progenitors King Oliver and Louis Armstrong travelled between New Orleans and Chicago, playing in both cities. While the two towns have gone on to develop jazz heritages with very different characters, a cadre of musicians has been cutting edge players from each back together in recent years. In a way, this isn’t new; the late Fred Anderson and Kidd Jordan enacted annual summits on the Velvet Lounge for years, and Jeb Bishop and Jeff Albert made the lemons of Hurricane Katrina into a sweet-sounding brew called the Lucky 7s. But guitarist Steve Marquette’s Instigation Festivals, which have taken place in both cities, have fostered a more complex combination of talents involving both cities’ avant-gardes. This quartet began as a free improv encounter involving two musicians from each city, but it turned out so well that the name of this tape became the name of a new band. Their music may build on past examples, but it’s definitely of its moment. Marquette’s resonant feedback and Anton Hatwich’s droning double bass bridge the electro-acoustic divide, and Paul Thibodeaux’s elastic beats suggest internal reverie more than second-line grooves. But it’s Aurora Nealand’s electronically processed singing and glassy tendrils of accordion that center this music within an otherworldly zone, albeit one where it’s still possible to stumble out of a late-night party in a black hole and find yourself blinking in the middle of a street party.

Bill Meyer  

 Junius Paul — Ism (International Anthem)

Ism by Junius Paul

Junius Paul is a shit-hot Chicago jazz bassist, a frequent collaborator with Makaya McCraven, one of the younger members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and a long-time habitué of the Velvet Lounge on the South Side. On this, his first album as bandleader, he exhibits a startling versatility, switching from acoustic to electric and back, spinning into heady frenzies (“You Are Free to Choose”) and pulling back into monastic discipline in minimalist tone poems (“Bowl Hit”). Paul is not above hitting a life-affirming groove, a la the laid back skronky swagger of “Baker’s Dozen,” but he’s also not married to it, witness the smouldery bowed abstractions of “Ma and Dad.” “Spockey Chainsey Has Re-Emerged” takes up a smoking quarter of the album’s duration, Paul’s restless bass pulsing under a fever dream of wild squalls of trumpet, luminous electric keyboards and a surge and roll of drumming. There’s plenty of great bass here, for fans of that sound, but Paul’s real strength is as a band leader and composer, leading a daring group of fellow travelers — Isaiah Spencer, Justin Dillard, Rajiv Halim, and Jim Baker — towards parts unknown.

Jennifer Kelly

 Ploughshare — Tellurian Insurgency (I, Voidhanger)

Tellurian Insurgency by PLOUGHSHARE

This new EP from Ploughshare curdles and oozes with ugly blackened death metal — or perhaps in this case, it’s deathy black metal? As metal subgenres and sub-subgenres (really, it’s getting Melvillean at this point…) hybridize and mutate, the community of engaged listeners and creators sometimes gets overly invested in categorization and species identification. And there’s so much to observe, out in the wild spaces of culture. To wit: For three years now, this bunch of weirdos from Canberra has been churning out songs with unpleasant titles like “The Urinary Chalice Held Aloft” and “In Offal, Salvation.” But if you can groove with the scatological wordplay, the riffs are pretty good. The record’s A-side, which includes “Abreactive Trance,” suggests that these guys (guys? no names are available) have spent some serious time listening to Deathspell Omega’s Paracletus. Let’s hope Ploughshare doesn’t share that other band’s irredeemable politics. Just what is a “Tellurian” insurgency? A fantasy of the Earthball’s primitive lifeforce striking back? More facile chest-beating about “anti-human” noise? And just how serious or cynical is the band’s appropriation of that famous image from the Book of Isaiah? Hard to say. But the guitar tone cuts more like a sword.

Jonathan Shaw

  Omar Souleyman—Schlon (Mad Decent)

Omar Souleyman, Syria’s best known wedding singer turned global recording phenomenon (he’s made over 500 records), brings joy in a world of trouble. Souleyman hails from Ras al-Ayn in northeastern Syria, an area that has, over the last several years, been fought over by Syria, the Kurds, Isis and the Turkish Army. He’s been living in Turkey since 2011, but things are not so great there either. So, it is remarkable, in its way, that Souleyman’s latest album, a mash-up of traditional dabke, disco and techno, is so very celebratory. Rave meets traditional wedding dance in the synth-y, string-slashing “Abou Zilif,” a cut that situates a stirring, primal male-sung chorus amid a Levantine-flavored disco. “Layle” likewise moves fast and relentlessly, bursts of saz (Azad Salih) winding through thickets of multi-toned drums. It hits hard and repeatedly, and if this is what people dance to at weddings in rural Syria, hats off. I’m exhausted just sitting on the couch.

Jennifer Kelly

  SunnO))) —  Pyroclasts (Southern Lord)

Pyroclasts is one of those releases that, viewed from one angle, seems to be at best inessential. Drone metal titans SunnO))) have already given 2019, in the form of Life Metal (which, as Dusted’s Jonathan Shaw puts it, is “a record that seeks the sublime”), an extremely essential record. If you were only going to listen to one album from them this year, that one is the one to start with. This one, by contrast, is literally a collection of some of the drones that Stephen O’Malley, Greg Anderson and their various guests and compatriots would start each day in the studio with when recording Life Metal. And yet, if you take a slightly different angle on it, Pyroclasts (named for the aftereffects of volcanic eruption) starts feeling more than anything else like a product of generosity. These were literally the exercises/rituals they began each working day with to get in the right frame of mind to make Life Metal; it would be entirely understandable if they didn’t want to share them with the world. The result both suffers and benefits from the much narrowed focus compared to their big brother; it doesn’t do everything Life Metal does, but if all you want is just under 44 minutes of straightforwardly brain-frying drone, Pyroclasts is here for you.  

Ian Mathers

 Horace Tapscott with the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and the Great Voice of UGMAA — Why Don’t You Listen? (Dark Tree)

Why Don't You Listen? - Live at LACMA, 1998 by Horace Tapscott with the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and the Great Voice of UGMAA

Recent lauded efforts by Angel Bat Dawid and Damon Locks suggest that socially conscious spiritual jazz is sending a message that makes a lot of sense in 2019. If such music speaks to you, consider checking out the work of Horace Tapscott, and particularly this welcome archival find. He was a composer, bandleader and pianist based in Los Angeles who led the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra from the 1960s until his death in 1999. Inspired by big bands lead by Duke Ellington and Sun Ra but concerned with celebrating and uniting the community where he lived, he fashioned music that into an exposition and affirmation of pride in pan-African and African-American ways and culture. This live recording of his ten-piece band in performance with a similarly-sized choir named the Union of God Musicians and Artists Ascension puts a hard stop on his timeline; it was the last time he played piano in public, since the aggressive cancer that ultimately killed him would first limit him to conducting in last appearances. There’s nothing wrong with playing here; he, saxophonist Michael Session, and trombonist Phil Ranelin all essay impassioned solos over the Arkestra’s massed percussion. But it’s the voices, led by singer Dwight Tribble, that embody Tapscott’s communal commitment and articulate his cultural concerns.

Bill Meyer

 TENGGER — Spiritual 2 (Beyond Beyond is Beyond)

It’s hard to create the kind of New Age-y post-kosmische psych drone that TENGGER does without having some kind of mystical angle, but the travelling musical family known as TENGGER leans into that harder than some. The mantra to focus on for this fine follow up to 2017’s recently reissued collection of harmonium, voice and synth-jams Spiritual is “if you’re looking at something, you should recognize that there is something invisible behind it”. Like most similar insights, let alone ones meant to be applied to a work of art, you’re probably going to get what you put into that one out of it, which means if you’re on TENGGER’s wavelength you probably already feel what they’re going for. Much of Spiritual 2 is fully up to the standard of its predecessor (the gently fried “See”, the suspended vocals of “Kyrie”, the softly pulsing extended length of “Wasserwellen”), but they show the most promising signs of growth when they adopt a bit of formal rigour. On the three-part dilatory experiment of “High,” “Middle” and “Low,” just subjecting the same melody to different speeds brings out something clarifying about the whole sound. You can really start to glimpse whatever invisible is behind it.  

Ian Mathers  

 Various Artists — Pop Ambient 2020 (Kompakt)

Pop Ambient 2020 by Various Artists

 Kompakt celebrates twenty years of the Pop Ambient series with a new collection of beatless luminance featuring stalwarts Joachim Spieth, Thomas Fehlman and Markus Guentner as well as some of the lesser-known names on the label’s roster.   

Thore Pfeiffer’s “Urquell” — an acoustic guitar over an unobtrusive bed of synths and scratchy strings — sets the mood for the subsequent 85 minutes. Tracks float by lulling the listener into a state between dreams and catatonia. Good then that Maria Estrella reminds us to breathe on Morgan Wurde’s “Laesst Los,” a quite lovely track built on string beds, treated whispers and Estrella’s gentle instructions.  The only vaguely unsettling moments come during Fehlman’s “Liebesperlen” with its lysergic take on deep house. NZ based composer Andrew Thomas rounds off the collection with two short pieces of atmospheric piano based contemporary minimalism that veer into Max Richter territory and are all the better for it. Pop Ambient 2020 is a warm bath; comfortable and enveloping without the depths to threaten, it passes by with few demands, diffident to the point of vanishing. Perfect for the next session in a hyperbaric chamber or MRI where at least there are whirrs and clicks to keep you alert.  

Andrew Forell 

 Winds of Egotism — Winds of Egotism (Death’s Radiance)

When Plato wrote his cave allegory, he couldn’t have Winds of Egotism in mind, yet his allegory became a reality with the band’s self-titled album. The band members haven’t left the cave and instead smuggled the gear in (even the country of origin is undisclosed). The resulting music raw, monotonic and unpretentious enough to be mistaken for drone.  The guitar excavates sounds so primitive that it sounds more like an echo from the cave walls than a guitar. Couldn’t they ask Satan for better equipment?  This EP is 17 minutes long total, just two short untitled tracks, with no audible difference between them. If true black metal is music that which doesn’t sound like black metal, then this is it. Plato or no Plato.

Ray Garraty

[burlveneer-music]

John Ghost - Airships Are Organisms - prog rock/jazz from Belgium (Sdban Records)

John Ghost is ingenious and exploratory, often described as a symbiosis between the sounds of Steve Reich, John Hollenbeck, Nils Frahm and Jaga Jazzist. Created around the Ghent guitarist and composer Jo De Geest, the Belgian sextet draw on influences from jazz, rock and post-classical music, where minimalism, electronics and a cinematic atmosphere characterize their instrumental music.

New album ‘Airships Are Organisms’, released 27th September via Sdban Ultra, was produced by Jørgen Træen (Jaga Jazzist, Kaizers Orchestra, Hubro, Sondre Lerche). When it came to recording the album, John Ghost searched for a balance between the venturous, accessible and playful character of jazz music, in which John Ghost has its origins, and a carefully thought out selection process with the production, with a sharp eye and ear for detail. Seemingly simple earwigs are underpinned by driving undertones that inspire harmonic twists and a rhythmic and melodic stratification, that often results in a very danceable soundtrack.

Tracks like 13-minute album opener ‘Deconstructing Hymns’, keep a fine balance between moments of abstraction and repetition while recent single ‘Disfunctional Rabbits: The Disfunction’ is an intoxicating, dreamy soundscape that alternates between balanced jazz fluctuations and space-like grooves. Elsewhere, the idiosyncratic ‘The Fallen Colony’, spirals into a progressive narrative of experimentation and improvisation, a common thread throughout large parts of John Ghost’s music, before the haunting ‘Drones For a Sunken Mothership’, combines soaring bowed melodies and broken beats that is not only mesmeric but filled with breathtaking majesty. 

[riffsstrides]

Mats Eilertsen Trio

Elegy

Hubro records, 2010

Harmen Fraanje: piano;

Thomas Strønen: drums;

Mats Eilertsen: bass

He's best-known internationally for his work on ECM recordings by artists including guitarist Jacob Young, pianist Wolfert Brederode, and, most recently, pianist Tord Gustavsen, with whom he's been touring in support of Restored, Returned (2010). But while these associations might suggest a bassist disposed to gentler forms and understated freedom, they're only two of Mats Eilertsen's many sides. A busy bassist in his native Norway, Eilertsen's broader reach can be heard on singer/songwriter Solveig Slettahjell's Tarpan Seasons (Universal, 2010), Hardanger fiddler Nils Okland's Bris (Rune Grammofon, 2005), the sonic extremes of Crimetime Orchestra at Molde Jazz 2009 , and the subdued spontaneity of The Source on its 2006 self-titled ECM set. Left to his own devices, and with a gradually growing discography as a leader, Eilertsen does lean towards a softer, and sometimes darker approach, with the flexible approach to time that's near-signature to Norwegian improvised music. Elegy is the bassist's first with a conventional piano trio, though it's far from the tradition; the trio's take on trumpeter Miles Davis' enduring "Nardis" filters its familiar theme through a particularly dense prism—Thelonious Monk-like in its quirky mannerisms as opposed to the romanticism associated with {Bill Evans, the pianist most closely associated with the tune. But Monk wouldn't have approached it with the kind of temporal elasticity that Eilertsen, drummer Thomas Strønen manage with such effortless fluidity. Eliertsen's choice of pianists for this set, largely composed of original material and spontaneous composition, features Harmen Fraanje, an up-and-coming Dutchman who, in addition to being a member of Eric Vloeimans' Fugimundi trio, has released three albums of his own, most recently Avalonia (Challenge, 2010). A good fit for this trio—comfortably blending European classicism with jazz's linguistic specificity, Fraange's "Six Weeks" is a stunning piece of dark melodism, juxtaposed with waves of paradoxically rounded angularity; a three-way conversation with Eilertsen, who blends robust, woody tone with flighty leaps into the upper register, and Strønen, who suggests time more often than playing it, coloring the music with dark, weighty cymbals and delicate movements around the kit. Eilertsen's material ranges from the tender, folkloric "Sukha" whose song-like lyricism, rests somewhere between the late Esbjorn Svensson's pop-centricity and Gustaven's mid-tempo minimalism, and "Kram," which leans more towards the greater extroversion of "Nardis," but with an underlying thematic emphasis. The trio's free improvisations are equally impressive, from the brief, quarter-note piano chord-driven title track, a feature for Eilertsen's arco, to the strummed bass figure of "Flying"—Fraanje's ebbing-and-flowing waves evoking images of birds in flight—and the more jagged but equally cinematic "Falling." Throughout, Eilertsen ensures complete democracy, distanced from a convention where piano is supported by a rhythm section of bass and drums. There's no lack of support to be found on Elegy, but it's a mutual thing—pulse as likely to come from Fraanje supporting Strønen's open-minded excursion as it is the other way around. Eilertsen anchors the bottom when needed, but is, more often than not, a melodic foil in this equilaterally designed and, consequently, open-minded trio.

JOHN KELMAN in All About Jazz

[suehpro]

Favorite Albums of 2018

My favorite album of the year: Five Dramas of Swollen Emotion for Music and Voice - Isak Sundstrom (Black Sweat)

And the other 99, in random order...

Migration of the Snails - Melodic Energy Commission (Telephone Explosion)

Libra Rising - Okkyung Lee, Ches Smith, Chris Corsano (Hot Cars Warp Records)

Disambiguation - Cruel Diagonals (Drawing Room)

Camizole/Lard Free - self-titled (Souffle Continu)

I Need to Start a Garden - Haley Heynderickx (Mama Bird)

AAMM - “A” Trio & AMM (Al Maslakh)

Captiva - Zeena Parkins (Good Child)

Consuelo - Chesterfield (Mikroton)

Chez Helene - Joelle Leandre & Marc Ducret (Ayler Records)

Disturbio - Angelica Castello (Mikroton)

I’ll Be Here In the Morning - Postcards (Ruptured)

Electronic Music from the Eighties and Nineties - Carl Stone (Unseen Worlds)

Ectotrophia - Happy Rhodes (Numero Group)

Hippo Lite - Drinks (Drag City)

The Air Around Her - Ellen Fullman & Okkyung Lee (1703 Skivbolaget)

Piano Interpretations - Kukuruz Quartet/Julius Eastman (Intakt)

A Day Hanging Dead Between Heaven and Earth - Fred Frith & Hardy Fox (Klanggalerie)

Attica / Coming Together / Les Moutons de Panurge - Frederic Rzewski (Black Sweat)

Runt Vigor - Audrey Chen (Karlrecords)

Raw Silk Uncut Wood - Laurel Halo (Latency)

Cheol-Kkot-Sae - Okkyung Lee (Tzadik)

Ductus Pneumaticus - Phil Minton & Torsten Muller (WhirrbooM)

Ours - Thumbscrew (Cuneiform)

Samara Lubelski / Bill Nace - self-titled (Relative Pitch)

Sun Embassy - Sun Ra Arkestra (Roaratorio)

Raise the River - Robert Dick & Tiffany Chang (RogueArt)

The Faust Tapes - Faust (Superior Viaduct)

Levitate (expanded, remastered) - The Fall (Cherry Red)

Lantskap Logic - Evelyn Davis, Fred Frith, Phillip Greenleaf (Clean Feed)

Improvisations - G.I. Gurdjieff (Fantome Phonographique)

Without - Clara de Asis (Elsewhere)

Thought Gang - self-titled (Sacred Bones)

Fades - Cheer-Accident (Skin Graft)

Uncharted Territories - Dave Holland, Evan Parker, Craig Taborn, Ches Smith (Dare2 Records)

Earlier Music - Officer! (Klanggalerie)

Big Hug/Ocean Fruit - Coffee (Cooling Pie Records)

Nosongs - Marianne Schuppe (Edition Wandelweiser)

An Unintended Legacy - AMM (Matchless)

Everyone Needs a Plan - Matthew Revert & Vanessa Rossetto (Erstwhile)

Imbrication - Jeph Jarman (Unfathomless)

Music of Southern and Northern Laos - Various (Akuphone)

Lightworks - Stop Motion Orchestra (Knock’em Dead)

Studio 105, Paris 1967 - Don Cherry (Hi Hat)

Se (in) De Bos - Book of Air (Granvat)

Traversing Orbits - Mary Halvorson & Joe Morris (RogueArt)

The Smoke - Lolina (self-released)

A l’Abri des Micro-Climats - Guigou Chevenier & Sophie Jausserand (Knock’em Dead/Megaphone)

Rats Don’t Eat Synthesizers - Dwarfs of East Agouza (Akuphone)

A Philosophy Warping, Little By Little That Way Lies a Quagmire - Konstrukt & Keiji Haino (Karlrecords)

Last Man in Europe - Remote Viewers (ReR)

Lot 74 - Solo Improvisations - Derek Bailey (Honest Jon’s)

Totale’s Turns (It’s Now or Never) - The Fall (Superior Viaduct)

Divine Ekstasys - Delphine Dora & Sophie Cooper (Feeding Tube)

In a Convex Mirror - John Zorn (w/Ches Smith & Ikue Mori) (Tzadik)

Pressing Clouds Passing Crowds - Kim Myhr (Hubro)

The Machinic Unconscious - Wendy Eisenberg (Tzadik)

Sisters Sarah Hennies and Lenka Novosedlikova (mappa)

Aviary - Julia Holter

Crystal Spears - Sun Ra (Modern Harmonic)

Recordings 1969-1988 - Ursula Bogner (Faitiche)

God Is More Than Love Can Ever Be - Sun Ra (Cosmic Myth)

Coyotes - Felicia Atkinson (Geographic North)

The Vanity of Trees - Padma Newsome (New Amsterdam)

Utter - Ingrid Laubrock & Tom Rainey (Relative Pitch)

Joy’s Reflection Is Sorrow - Sharron Kraus (Sunstone)

Seed Triangular - Mary Halvorson & Robbie Lee (New Amsterdam)

Distant Voices - Steve Lacy, Yuki Takahashi, Takehisa Kosugi (Aguirre)

Chordis et Machina - Ikue Mori & Christian Ronn (Resipiscent)

Maroon Cloud - Nicole Mitchell (FPE Records)

The Peter Blegvad Bandbox - Peter Blegvad (ReR)

Ghost Forests - Meg Baird & Mary Lattimore (Three Lobed Recordings)

ガラ刑GALAKEI - Tori Kudo (bruit direct disques)

Contemporary Chaos Practices - Ingrid Laubrock (Intakt)

Failed Celestial Creatures - David Grubbs & Taku Unami (Empty Editions)

Lost in Shadows - Ashley Paul (Slip)

The Bray Harp - Jeph Jerman (White Centipede Noise)

The Expanding Universe - Laurie Spiegel (Unseen Worlds)

Uncompahgre - Kirk Knuffke & Ben Goldberg (Relative Pitch)

All the Roots - Hollow Deck (Feeding Tube Records)

Mangelen Min - Building Instrument (Hubro)

Ki-Motion - Mkwaju Ensemble (WRWTFWW)

Kashawa: Early Singles - Stella Chiweshe (Glitterbeat)

Brace for Impact - Joe McPhee & Mats Gustafsson (Corbett vs Dempsey)

Something More - Mikayel Abazyan (self-released)

Code Girl - Mary Halvorson (Firehouse 12)

A Complete and Tonal Disaster - Congs for Brums (self-released)

Persepolis - Iannis Xenakis (Karlrecords)

Beholder - Julia Reidy (A Guide to Saints)

Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album - John Coltrane (Impulse!)

Asperger - Caterina Palazzi | Sudoku Killer (Clean Feed)

Waved Out - Robert Pollard (GBV, Inc)

The Cymbals/Symbols Sessions: NYC 1973 - Sun Ra (Modern Harmonic)

Letters to the Friends of the Late Darcy O’Meara - Matthew Revert (Round Bale)

Canaxis - Holger Czukay (P-Vine Records)

X/Ten - Peter Hammill (Fie!)

Struggle Artist - Meyers (Shelter Press)

Stadium - Eli Keszler (Shelter Press)

Meltdown - Live in Mexico - King Crimson (Panegyric)

Bimini Twist - Alison Statton & Spike (Tiny Global Productions)

[fuitedejazz]

Møster! | Dust Breathing | Hubro records

Kjetil Møster - sax, electronics :: Anders Hana - guitar, electronics :: Børge Fjordheim - drums

[listeningmark]

Hilde Marie Holsen - Lazuli

Haunting melancholy slow trumpet lines over an apocalyptic sci-fi collage of other instruments and found sounds / recordings. Beautiful.

Hubro Music

[inkutv]

Recension @ Lira.se  

Akustisk improvisationsjazz 

Monkey PlotAngående omstendigheter som ikke lar seg nedtegne 

Skivbolag: Hubro Records   Recenserad av: Lennarrrt Olausson

Gitarrtrion Monkey Plot (Christian Winther – akustisk gitarr, Magnus Nergaard – bas , och Jan Martin Gismervik – trummor) har växt upp i den frodiga norska jazzmyllan. Nu till andra (om man inte räknar en kassettbandutgivning med Pär Thörn) albumet: Angående omstendigheter som ikke lar seg nedtegne, en titel som just svenske poeten och ljudkonstnären Pär Thörn ligger bakom. Monkey Plot utsågs 2014 till Årets unge jazzmusikere 2014, fick därmed ett tillhörande stipendium från Gramo (norska motsvarigheten till STIM) och har sedan dess gått in i en akustisk fas. Det är repetitiv improviserad jazz som stundtals gnisslar och skaver, och där Monkey Plots hantering av sina instrument får tankarna att gå till Andreaz Hedén, speciellt på Jeg snakket for lite. På Et mikrofoto låter det som en gitarrackompanjerad tändkulemotor. Blir det då enformigt? Nej, snarare intressant meditativt.

Ext. Ver. @ #ib2.se / Review.Lennarrrt.xyz

Join Generation XYZ @ gen.xyz

[donospl]

Co w jazzie piszczy [sezon 2 odcinek 33]

premierowa emisja 11 września 2024 – 18:00 Graliśmy: Jan Lundgren & Yamandu Costa “Garoto” z albumu “Inner Spirits”  – ACT Music Daniel Garcia Trio “Tears of Joy” z albumu “Wonderland” – ACT Music Jazzrausch Bigband “Punkt und Linie zur Flaeche” z albumu “Bangers Only!” – ACT Music Wolfgang Haffner  “Silence and Sound” z albumu “Life Rhythm” – ACT Music Art Baden “Silky” z albumu “How Much…

[guitarpanda8]

Polish pediatric center: 40 percent took vitamin D – March 2019

Note: 40 ng in the summer for those children taking vitamin D Infant-Child category has

Having a good level of vitamin D cuts in half the amount of:

Need even more IUs of vitamin D to get a good level if;

Have little vitamin D: premie, twin, mother did not get much sun access

Get little vitamin D: dark skin, little access to sun

Vitamin D is consumed faster than normal due to sickness

Older (need at least 100 IU/kilogram, far more if obese)

Not get any vitamin D from formula (breast fed) or (fortified) milk Note – formula does not even provide 400 IU of vitamin D daily

Infants-Children need Vitamin D

Getting Vitamin D into infants

Many infants reject vitamin D drops, even when put on nipple I speculate that the rejection is due to one or more of: additives, taste, and oils. Infants have a hard time digesting oils, 1999  1997   and palm oils W.A. Price 1 2 3 Coconut oil, such as in D-Drops, is digested by infants. 1,   2   3 Bio-Tech Pharmacal Vitamin D has NO additves, taste, oil One capsule of 50,000 Bio-Tech Pharmacal Vitamin D could be stirred into monthly formula    this would result in ~1,600 IUs per day for infant, and higher dose with weight/age/formula consumption

522 items in the category Infant/Child See also

breastfed 962 items as of Sept 2017

"BIRTH DEFECTS" 172 items as of July 2016

Stunting OR “low birth weight” OR LBW OR preemie OR preemies OR preterm 1940 items as of Oct 2018

"SUDDEN INFANT DEATH" OR SIDS 177 items as of Nov 2018

Overview of Rickets and Vitamin D

Youth category listing has 140 items along with related searches

Infant-Child Intervention trials using Vitamin D:

Preterm babies have low vitamin D, but recover in 6 weeks with 800 IU supplementation – Jan 2019

1200 IU vs 400 IU of vitamin D did not improve bone health or immunity of children who were sufficient – RCT July 2018

Childhood Respiratory Health hardly improved with 600 IU of vitamin D (need much more) – May 2018

430 genes changed when 3,800 IU Vitamin D added in late second trimester – RCT May 2018

Severe Non-Alcoholic fatty liver disease treated by Omega-3 – RCT April 2018

400 IU of Vitamin D provided no benefit to children (not a surprise) – RCT March 2018

Allergic rhinitis in children reduced somewhat during pollen season by just 1,000 IU of vitamin D – RCT Jan 2018

Influenza -A infections half as often in children getting 1200 IU of vitamin D – RCT Jan 2018

Risk of infant Asthma cut in half if mother supplemented Vitamin D to get more than 30 ng – RCT Oct 2017

Preemies getting 800 IU of vitamin D were 3X less likely to have low bone density 4 weeks later – RCT Oct 2017

Preemies need 1,000 IU of vitamin D – RCT Sept 2017

Fatty liver disease in children nicely treated by combination of Vitamin D and Omega-3 – RCT Dec 2016

Vitamin D needed to get children to just 20 ng in winter 800 IU white skin, 1100 IU dark (Sweden) – RCT June 2017

Childhood asthma problems eliminated for months by 600,000 IU of Vitamin D – June 2017

Breastfeeding mothers and Vitamin D: supplement only themselves usually, 4 out of 10 used monthly rather than daily – Jan 2017

Premature infants (30 weeks) who got 800-1000 IU of vitamin D were much healthier – March 2017

Newborn Vitamin D - single dose is better than daily – RCT Sept 2016

Mother got 100,000 IU of vitamin D monthly, breastfeeding infant got a little – RCT Aug 2016

Monthly 120,000 IU of Vitamin D during lactation worked well - May 2016

Infant infection reduced by half with vitamin D supplementation – RCT May 2016

Five times less mite allergy when vitamin D added in mid pregnancy and to infant – RCT April 2016

Vitamin D improved child muscle mass even without varying dose with weight – RCT Feb 2016

Breastfeeding mother getting 6400 IU of Vitamin D is similar to infant getting 400 IU – RCT Sept 2015

Children getting 60,000 IU monthly got to vitamin D level of 33 ng – Sept 2015

Breast-feeding mothers need 2000 IU of vitamin D to get infants to even 12 ng – July 2015

2,000 IU of vitamin D reduced schizophrenia chance by 77 percent (male infants) - 2004

Growing pains reduced 57 percent by vitamin D therapy – May 2015

T1 diabetes in children helped with two doses of 150,000 IU of vitamin D and Calcium – March 2015

50,000 IU Vitamin D one time after birth helped – RCT Jan 2015

Type 1 diabetes helped with 50,000 IU of vitamin D every two weeks – Nov 2014

Growing pains reduced 60 percent by vitamin D supplementation – March 2014

Respiratory Tract visits 2.5 less likely with vitamin D: Pregnancy 2000 IU, Infant 800 IU – RCT Oct 2014

2000 IU vitamin D during pregnancy and 800 IU to infant resulted in less use of antibiotics – RCT April 2014

Neonate loading dose of 30,000 IU vitamin D helped a lot – May 2014

2000 IU of vitamin D should improve toddlers health in winter – RCT almost completed Feb 2014

800 IU vitamin D for infant and 2000 IU for mother is good, not great – RCT Dec 2013

Breast milk resulted in 20 ng of vitamin D for infant if mother had taken 5,000 IU daily – RCT Dec 2013

Severe tooth decay in children unless supplemented with Vitamin D drops – Oct 2013

Middle ear infection (Otitis Media) and Vitamin D – many studies

Many preemies need at least 800 IU of vitamin D – RCT May 2013

Third study found that Infants needed 1600 IU of vitamin D – JAMA RCT May 2013

UVB added in classroom reduced cavities, increased height, increased academics. etc

Dental caries cut in half by vitamin D, review of 24 old clinical trials – Nov 2012

Recurrence of child pneumonia delayed by 100000 IU of vitamin D – RCT Oct 2010

Intervention of 400 IU of vitamin D raised infant blood levels 14 ng – Jan 2012

Congestive heart failure in infants virtually cured by 1000 IU of vitamin D – RCT Feb 2012

Infants getting 1400 IU vitamin D weekly grew better – RCT May 2011

6400 IU vitamin D is effective during breastfeeding – Oct 2010

Vitamin D in Europe category listing has 189 items has the following

% of Europeans with < 30 nanograms – after adjustment of readings

StudyCountries< 30 ng HELENA 9 EU 97% OPUS Denmark87% Tromsø Study: Fit Futures Norway 96% HGS Greece 97% INNS Greece 90% Cork BASELINE Birth Ireland 84% NDNS 1–18 y United Kingdom 90% NDNS >18 y United Kingdom 91% DEG4 Germany 91% Tromsø Study–6th Survey Norway 75% NHS Netherlands 78% LASA Netherlands 68% AGES–Reykjavik Iceland 86% Finnish Migrant Health . . Finland89% NANS Ireland 81% Health 2011 Finland 76% HUBRO Norway 66% Health 2006 Denmark 68%

&nbspDownload the PDF from VitaminDWiki

Note: 60% (not shown in pie chart) did not get ANY vitamin D supplementation

Introduction: According to updated evidence-based national recommendations which have been published recently vitamin D deficiency remains still highly prevalent in Poland and requires supplementation.

Aim of the study: was to evaluate the effectiveness of implementation of the new national recommendations into daily practice.

Material and methods: An analysis of medical records of 100 children aged from 6 months to 14 years admitted to the Department of Pediatrics, Hospital in Brzesko, Lesser Poland, from 1st July 2018 to 31st August 2018.

Results 41% patients declared vitamin D supplementation.

Among patients under 1 year of age 3 (60%) received recommended supplementation of 400-600 IU daily,

in the group of 1-11 years old 15 (19.5%) used a 600-1000 IU dose daily, 13 (17%) < 600 IU/daily, and 2 (2.5%) > 1000 IU daily, 1 patient did not remember the dose.

In the group >11 years of age 6 (37.5%) supplemented 800-2000 IU/day, 1 (6.3%) less than 800 IU, no one overdosed supplementation. In the group without supplementation, there were 3 patients with a de-creased 25(OH)D blood serum level (< 20 ng/ml).

Mean 25(OH)D serum level was significantly higher in the group with vitamin D supplementation (42 vs. 33.9 ng/ml; p = 0.0006).

There was no significant difference between mean 25(OH)D level in patients receiving adequate (40.5 ng/ml), to low (43 ng/ml), or to high vitamin D doses (49 ng/ml).

There was no significant correlation between vitamin D dose and the 25(OH)D serum level [R = (–) 0.24, p > 0.05)].

Conclusions There is an urgent need for physicians to provide an education concerning general rules of vitamin D supplementation, because the pre-sent guidelines of the vitamin D supplementation are not implemented well enough.

Created by admin. Last Modification: Thursday April 11, 2019 15:40:16 GMT-0000 by admin. (Version 6)

Source: https://vitamindwiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=Polish+pediatric+center:+40+percent+took+vitamin+D+–+March+2019

[musicollage]

Møster! – Edvard Lygre Møster. Hubro : 2013.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume Five, Number 8

Graham Dunning and his mechanical techno rig

Our occasional survey of records we might have missed continues with a late July edition of Dust. This time around, our hot and hazy listening spanned localities and genres from Norwegian folk to Black Dirt jam to Swedish dream pop to Ohio noise-electronics, Kashmiri war metal and well beyond, with the usual stop-over in Chicago for free-improv jazz. Writers included Bill Meyer, Justin Cober-Lake, Ian Mathers, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw, Andrew Forell and Nate Knaebel. Stay cool.

Erlend Apneseth Trio with Frode Haltli — Salika, Molika CD (Hubro)

Salika, Molika by Erlend Apneseth Trio

This project unites two musicians who have set themselves the task of reconciling contemporary means with Norwegian folk music materials in the 21st century. Erlend Apneseth plays Hardanger fiddle, a violin variant with sympathetic strings that give it a striking resonance; his trio includes a drummer with a feel for Norway’s pre-rock popular dance grooves and an acoustic guitarist who doubles on sampler and other electronics. Frode Haltli is an accordionist who has shuttled between the worlds of folk and free improvisation. Their collaboration scrambles lucid memory, which is represented by archival field recordings of folk songs and dances, with a mildly feverish dream of a trip through ambient textures that somehow detours every now and then through beats that’d earn you an extra beer if you played them in a Nordic country dance hall. The field recordings exert a gravity that counteracts the lightness of the spacy passages, and Haltli tucks his virtuoso command of the squeezebox into hiding spots, ripe for discovery.

Bill Meyer

 Hans Chew & Garcia Peoples — NATCH 10: Hans Chew & Garcia Peoples (Black Dirt Studio)

NATCH 10 - Hans Chew & Garcia Peoples by Hans Chew & Garcia Peoples

After a few years off, Jason Meagher's Black Dirt Studio has resumed its NATCH series of releases, with volume nine (ignoring the prefatory release) coming from Wednesday Knudsen and Willie Lane in June, and the latest pairing Hans Chew and Garcia Peoples. The series offers artists the freedom to collaborate however they please to create freely available releases. Chew and Garcia Peoples make for an ideal match on paper, and the actual pairing pays off.  

Garcia Peoples started their cosmic psych just last year, with two albums out in short order. Pianist Chew has been putting in his time for longer, taking his roots-of-rock and Southern rock sound into increasingly spacey places, turning more and more toward a jam sensibility without sacrificing his songwriting. His Open Sea started taking hints from Traffic, so it's no surprise that this release includes a Dave Mason cover, “Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave.” Chew fits effortlessly into Garcia Peoples' jams for a couple tracks, and they meet him in his bluesy-ness for “No Time.” In the middle we have the acidic meditation of “All Boredoms Entertained,” the hinge between the two more rocking segments. The partnership works best when everybody takes off, and the 10-minute opener “Hourglass” burns as hot on record as it would at a festival.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Death & Vanilla — Are You a Dreamer? (Fire)

Are You A Dreamer? By Death & Vanilla

On their third album, this trio from Malmö, Sweden show a devotion to making the most gossamer strain of dream pop without ever losing sight of a knack for peppily compelling song structures. Two of those four earlier albums may have been live soundtracks for movies, but none of these eight deceptively sharply-written songs fade into the background for a second. Singer Marleen Nilsson may be swathed in gauzy atmospherics throughout, but whether on the swooning opener “A Flaw in the Iris,” the foreboding thrum of “Mercier” or the orchestral surges of “Nothing Is Real,” she effortlessly commands center stage here. The music deserves the obvious comparisons to Stereolab and early Broadcast, but Death & Vanilla manage to put their own spin on the influences they share with those earlier acts, and the result is a good reminder that there more than enough room on that territory for multiple bands.

Ian Mathers

 Graham Dunning — Tentation LP (White Denim)

Walk Tentation down on the turntable without foreknowledge of who made it or how it was made, and you’re likely to think that you’re hearing a bit of in sync but off-kilter techno. It sounds like some lost Kompakt release got shaken up and dubbed out with a bag half full of Lego pieces. But the truth is stranger than that. Graham Dunning plays a real time mechanical techno with a homemade, eternally changeable set-up that can simultaneously play a stack of records whilst affording him the means to fuck with individual sounds. True to his techno ambitions, this stuff bumps in ways the kids won’t question. But his willingness to get hung up on a sound and play with it, and then play with it a bit more, mark him as an experimenter with a feline sense of play. “Do I put a bit more reverb on this bit of echo,” one can imagine him musing, “or do I just knock it under this bump in the rug?”

Bill Meyer

  Erin Durant — Islands (Keeled Scales)

Islands by Erin Durant

Erin Durant has a lovely, old-fashioned country voice, flute-y with vibrato at the top-end, rich with emotive sustenance in the mid and lower ranges. It’s the kind of voice that careers are built on, yet Ms. Durant, born in New Orleans now living in Brooklyn, refuses to take the easy road of relying on in-born talents. She brings into complication, depth and contradiction into her songs with a sharp, modern writer’s pen and an idiosyncratic cast of supporting musicians. Her crew on Islands is headed by TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone and includes percussion-centric composer Otto Hauser, the boundary pushing pedal steel artist Jon Catfish DeLorme, at least once on harmonica, the eccentric folk singer Kath Bloom, and a large ensemble of brass and reeds. So when on opener “Rising Sun,” she playfully dabs at the Animals’ blues-rock chestnut (verses begin with the phrase “There is a house in New Orleans”), it’s within a precise lattice of country guitar, of multi-tonal percussion, of flickering bits of flute and woozy surges of trombone and trumpet. It lighter and more delicately structured than the song it references, yet built out elaborately with complex layers of instruments. The title cut, likewise, lifts off in airy weightlessness from the gospel chords of piano, as tied to tradition as it needs to be for resonance, yet fundamentally self-determined. There is nothing lovelier than Durant’s massed, multi-voiced choruses here, but the prettiness isn’t everything, far from it.

Jennifer Kelly

 Four Letter Words — Pinch Point (Amalgam Music)

Pinch Point by Four Letter Words

The Chicago-based trio Four Letter Words comes full circle on its second album. Pianist Matt Piet, tenor saxophonist Jake Wark and drummer Bill Harris first convened to play a night of trios at the venue Constellation, but then pursued an investigation of written material before returning to spontaneous music making for this nicely packaged, short run disc. You can get a lot out of this music by focusing on Harris’ inventiveness and humility, or Wark’s angular impetuousness or Piet’s astonishing capacity to pick the best ideas of a half century of jazz practice and put them in just the right places. But you might get more from listening to how the trio collectively imagines musical environments, realizes them, and then pushes off to the next idea at just the right moment to leave you wishing they’d stayed a little longer.

Bill Meyer

  Jake Xerxes Fussell — Out of Sight (Paradise of Bachelors)

Guitarist Jake Xerxes Fussell has a knack for curating old music, but his first two albums were more than simple collections of reworked folk music. His sharp playing and intelligent production (give William Tyler some credit here) have turned old tunes into something a little more vibrant. For Out of Sight, he adds a proper band to his presentation, and the presence of Nathan Bowles on drums is worth noting, even if that sympatico artist largely keeps in the background. In expanding his lineup, Fussell also expands his sound; he no longer just mines particular folk traditions, but instead he inserts himself into a larger Americana conversation. 

The move, intentionally or not, puts more of Fussell himself into the album, to its benefit. If anything held back his previous releases, it was this sense at the edges of the sound that Fussell had tied his own hands, his traditionalism tending toward that curator impulse. The songs on Out of Sight come from a variety of places (though if you plotted most of them on a Seeger-Lomax axis, it would make sense), but they're put into Fussell's current vision. “Three Ravens” builds a broad frame for a singular meditation, the sort of moment his work has hinted at without maintaining. Fussell sounds like he's deep in tradition, but committed to pushing it forward in his own way know, and it's a wonderful step for a gifted artist.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Halshug — Drøm (Southern Lord)

Drøm by Halshug

“Kæmper Imod,” the first track on Halshug’s new LP Drøm, could easily fit onto the second side of Black Flag’s The First Four Years, which chronicles the singles and EPs the Flag released during Dez Cadena’s tenure as front man. The Danish hardcore band hits all the necessary notes, channeling Greg Ginn’s ugly guitar tone and the vicious, overdriven quality of Southern Cali hardcore, c. 1981. The song might be a love letter, but the first side of Drøm doesn’t move far beyond the established sounds of a style now nearly 40 years old. On second side of the record, Halshug does some more varied stuff. “Tænk På Dig Selv” shifts in and out of competing rhythms and makes a winning ruckus. Most interesting are the industrial racket of “02.47” and the extended instrumental “Illusion,” which moves from hard rocking groove, to thunderously exuberant crusty riffing, to arcing drone, and then back again. It’s a hugely fun, sonically engaging song, which makes you wish Halshug would ditch the Hermosa Beach vibe that dominates much of the record.          

Jonathan Shaw

 DJ HARAM — Grace (Hyperdub)

Grace by dj haram

Philly based producer DJ Haram (Zubeyda Muzeyyen) builds the tracks on her Hyperdub debut Grace on darbuka rhythms in homage to her Middle Eastern roots. The album also reflects her involvement in the experimental scene as a DJ and half of noise/rap duo 700 Bliss (with Moor Mother). Over the delicate percussion she layers flutes, big slabs of synth, heavier beats and disruptive stabs of noise. “Candle Light (700 Bliss Remix)” introduces vocals with an impressionistic poetic rap over a purely percussive backing. There is an urgency here driven by the restless, relentless rhythms which makes Grace is a disquieting and claustrophic listening experience. Fans of Muslimgauze and Badawi will find much to admire. DJ Haram uses a limited palette to full and focused effect building atmosphere and impressively drawing a line between middle eastern and western electronic music.

Andrew Forell

 Tim Hecker — Anoyo (Kranky)

Anoyo by Tim Hecker

Tim Hecker may make music that envelops the listener with beatless, thickly textured sound, but don’t call it ambient. For while ambient music holds at least the possibility that you can get lost in its drift, Hecker likes to short-circuit comfort. Soft sounds turn grainy, plush clouds disappear and if you catch him in concert you’ll feel the music as much as you hear it because it’s that loud. Anoyo is a companion to last year’s Kanoyo, and like its predecessor originated with some collaborative sessions between Hecker and an ensemble of gagaku (Japanese traditional ceremonial) musicians. He mixes their sounds up with warped and reversed strings and squelchy synthetic bass, and shapes the resulting amalgam into aural vignettes that are less extravagantly mobile than the tracks on Kanoyo but equally dislocating as national traditions and diverse equipment collections swirl and meet on uncommon ground.

Bill Meyer

 Kapala — Termination Apex (Dunkelheit Produktionen)

Termination Apex by KAPALA

By its very nature, war metal is retrograde stuff. The fact that the bands most strongly associated with the subgenre (Proclamation and — yes, seriously — Bestial Warlust) hailed from nations that haven’t experienced much by way of war-related trauma for decades doesn’t help. Does it make a difference that Kapala live and record in Kolkata, and that India and Pakistan have effectively been at war in Kashmir since Partition, and have been in a U.N.-mediated ceasefire (sort of) since 1965? And that both nations are nuclear powers? And that India is led by a fiery Hindu nationalist? And that the cover art for Termination Apex features a stylized mushroom cloud? Yikes. Aesthetically, war metal has its appeal. It features simplistic riffing, technical primitivism and hammering percussion, all taken to sonic extremes. But its romanticization of industrially scaled destruction and nihilism is repugnant and culturally corrosive. Kapala will attract some attention just through exoticism — metal from India? Sure, I’ll check it out. But a reactionary artwork is a reactionary artwork, wherever it comes from.

Jonathan Shaw

 Khaki Blazer—Optikk (Hausu Mountain)

Optikk by Khaki Blazer

“Mothafucker ain’t nobody playing grooves in 13. You can’t get paid for playing grooves in 13. Ain’t nobody gonna shake their booty. That’s why you’re fucking broke,” observes an uncredited voice in the spikily difficult “4/4,” a typically intricate rhythmic concoction of electronic squeaks, blurts and rattles for this Kent, Ohio-based outfit. Pat Modugno who heads up Khaki Blazer, as well as Mothcock and Fairchild Tapes, constructs giddy, multilayered rhythms. In “Conga Line” sampled, altered voices do battle with rackety bursts of drumming and urgent, antic whistle of a melody. The parts work every which way, throwing elbows, stepping on toes, in furious conflict that somehow resolves itself into slinky rhythm. Whether in four, in six, in seven or in thirteen, Khaki Blazer cuts never take the easy way, but they are grooves all the same.

Jennifer Kelly

 Lambchop — This (Is What I Wanted to Tell You) (City Slang/Merge)

Fourteen albums in and Nashville’s increasingly sui generis Lambchop, led as always by Kurt Wagner, is doing something that feels unusual, at least for them. 2016’s digitally-enhanced FLOTUS was a sprawling statement of a record, and given the restlessness that led to the processing Lambchop used there it wouldn’t be a surprise if their new record went off in a totally new direction. Instead the focused, somewhat more straightforward This (Is What I Wanted to Tell You) could almost be a hefty postscript to FLOTUS. It doesn’t boast anything with the majesty of the two ten-plus minute tracks on the previous album, but all the songs here sound even more comfortable in their own hybrid skins, and as always Wagner is in fine lyrical form. It remains to be seen if this constitutes as Lambchop settling down, but if so it’s in a richer and more bracing way than most bands half their age can manage.  

Ian Mathers  

 Régis Renouard Larivière — Contrée (Recollection GRM)

Régis Renouard Larrivière was born in 1959. But if Discogs is a reliable reporter, despite having been involved in music as a student, instructor, and composer of musique concrete, this is only his second album. Presumably his works are intended more for the multi-speaker listening environments available to the Groupe de Recherches Musicales; certainly it’s not hard to imagine this LP’s three pieces caroming from speaker to speaker, elevating the listener into a mind-altered state induced more by unfamiliarity than sensate distortion. The way they leap off the vinyl of this 45-rpm LP is a trip in itself. No substance, prescribed or otherwise scored, will get you where this stuff takes you. Even when a sound seems familiar — there’s some identifiable drumming amidst the synthetic twitter and boom — it behaves in ways that are unconcerned with the laws of music. Despite its unnatural sound content, Larivière’s music moves more like some force of nature. “Esquive,” for example, evokes leaves in an updraft, circling and dispersing. Like those leaves, each sound has tactile identity that invites you to deal with his compositions at the atomic as well as meteorological level. Strap in, enjoy the ride.

Bill Meyer

  Gabriele Mitelli / Rob Mazurek — Star Splitter (Clean Feed)

The recurrent astronomical imagery in Rob Mazurek's music makes this much clear; his horizons are farther off than most. A restless multi-media artist (his work includes sound and light installations, painting, and composed and improvised music performed with various brass and electronic instruments in the company of musicians from at least three continents), he nonetheless has certain modes that he revisits. In Gabriele Mitelli, he has found an astute companion to follow him into the realm of ritual. In 2018, the two men stepped into the Mediterranean and blew their horns in the direction of the African refugees trying to cross the sea in untrustworthy vessels. No one showed up while they played, but the energy they projected took wind and you can still get a taste of it on Youtube. On Star Splitter, which was recorded on dry land in Florence, they add electronics, voices, and unidentified objects to their brass (Mitelli: cornet, soprano sax, alto flugelhorn; Mazurek: piccolo trumpet) to stir up four sonic maelstroms in celebration of planets from our solar system. Direct our ears in their direction and see how far your own horizons recede.

Bill Meyer

  Tony Molina—Songs from San Mateo County (Smoking Room/650 Records)

Songs From San Mateo County by Tony Molina

Tony Molina is a master of concision. No sooner have his songs stated their killer riff or indelible melody than they’re over, and damned if you wouldn’t like to hear them again. His blistery guitar and way with tunefulness evokes Teenaged Fanclub, and here, on a collection of unreleased and unfinished material from 2009 to 2015, it becomes clear that he doesn’t have to work that hard to hit that sweet spot. The odds and sods are as fetching as anything on his last three albums. Sure he plays fast and loose with some baroque guitar licks on “Intro” and “Been Here Before,” and maybe that’s a little bit off center for power pop genre. But he weaves them in, at least in “Been Here Before” in a way that reinforces the doomed romantic vibe. He rocks a little harder than usual, too, on cuts like “Hard to Know,” with a sidewinding guitar break worthy of Brian May in his prime, but as usual, any hint of rock star excess is limited: the cut is less than a minute long. “Separate Ways” layers sublime dream pop hooks over an incendiary racket, like J. Mascis stepped in to a Raspberries session. The whole collection is so catchy and so satisfying that you have to wonder what else Molina has languishing in his hard drive. Let the songs out, man. We can always use more of these.

Jennifer Kelly

 Mark Morgan — Department of Heraldry (Open Mouth)

The rise and fall of the guitar in popular and critical esteem relates directly to the fact that a lot of people play the thing, and a lot of them sound like lesser imitations of someone doing something that you never wanted to hear done with the thing. If this is your problem with the guitar, Mark Morgan is not part of your problem. The former member of Sightings makes a case for the instrument as a vehicle for creative sound manipulation that cannot be refuted by lazy reference to the dozens of records in your collection, or memory, or once-clicked, never closed browser pages. This music sounds like it is being chewed and digested during the passage from his amplifier to your eardrum. Molars indent twangs, incisors gnash chunks of fuzz, and acids strip off the crusty coating and lay bare the jagged bones of sounds that you really, really shouldn’t be swallowing, but that you really need to hear.

Bill Meyer

Private Anarchy — Central Planning (Round Bale)

Central Planning by Private Anarchy

Titular intimations of both anarchy and planning suggest internal tension that is born out by the music on this album, which is the inaugural vinyl release by hitherto cassette-oriented Round Bale Recordings. Private Anarchy has a bit of an identity crisis; shall one emulate the petulant, gotta get this off my chest delivery of David Thomas c. 1979 or the twangy stride that the Fall hit around the same time? Since the combo is really one man who is acquainted enough with the 21st century to put a laptop computer on the LP’s cover, Clay Kolbinger has taken the time to figure out how to do both at once. The admittedly derivative sounds are well executed, with enough apprehension to suggest that he is similarly motivated by a discomfort that cannot be assuaged.

Bill Meyer

  Rodent Kontrol — Live (Fuzzy Warbles Casettes)

Rodent Kontrol Live (FW13) by Fuzzy Warbles Cassettes

Delivering post-Meatmen teenage punk knuckleheadedness at its explosively deranged best, the short-lived Ann Arbor high-school band Rodent Kontrol played this impromptu live set on the University of Michigan's WCBN in 1987 following a performance by the Laughing Hyenas. The latter were one of the toughest acts to follow, but Rodent Kontrol's calamitous, search-and-destroy assault is so gleefully unhinged, and full of the kind of ill-defined yet apoplectic animosity that can only be mustered by the young and the reckless, they truly give Brannon and co. a run for their money. While Live is on the one hand an amusing artifact, it is on the other a true gem of a release in our current era of archival overabundance. Make no mistake, this is rough, sloppy, perhaps offensive stuff, and Rodent Kontrol didn't break any new ground musically or aesthetically. But the nearly sublime agitation exuded by these guys here is truly something to behold, creating a genuinely unnerving sense that something very bad about is about to happen, and when it does it will feel absolutely good. If that's not the point of this kind of thing, I don't know what is. In addition to the 1987 live performance, this cassette release (also available as a download) adds a 2012 reunion show featuring a slightly tighter, slightly more "mature" version of the band, but certainly no less nihilistic. 

Nate Knaebel

 Sail into Night — Distill (self released)

In the three years since this Dubai-based Pakistani duo’s very promising debut, it feels like if anything they’ve pared down their already elementally satisfying, nocturnal variety of post-punk slowcore to its simple, direct, powerful essence. Zara Mahmood’s harmonium, Nabil Qizilbash’s guitar, a drum machine and their vocals continue to be enough to generate surprisingly heavy music; although you’d be hard pressed to fit the music stylistically anywhere in the heavy metal realm, emotionally and tonally it exists somewhere between the “stonegaze” of a band like True Widow and the stark grandeur of early Low. From the chiming “Lighthouse” to the closing grind of “Apart,” Distill packs a lot of dark energy into a compact 30-minute run time.  

Ian Mathers

  The Schramms—Omnidirectional (Bar/None)

You might know Dave Schramm as an original member of Yo La Tengo or for his guitar work for a whole slew of artists ranging from The Replacements to Freedy Johnston. You might even remember a string of clever, understated country-pop albums from the early 1990s through the turn of this century under the nom de guerre The Schramms — though it’s been a long time. But this seventh Schramms album, the first since 2000, will take you right back to all that’s wonderful about Dave Schramm: quiet intelligence, unshowy but impressive skills, an alchemical way of slipping abrasive rock sounds into soft pop melodies, quality over flash, but still a bit of flash. Take, for instance, the way that “Faith is a Dusty Word” opens up from a rambling piano ballad into swoon-y Pet Sounds-worthy vocal counterpoints, or how contemplative “New England” blossoms from wispy indie pop into a bitter sweet rock anthem, a la American Music Club. Schramm plays with long-time drummer Ron Metz (their partnership dates back to the 1970s Ohio cult band The Human Switchboard) and bassist Al Greller, an original Schramm, so it’s all very burned in, with the easy, unstruggled-for precision of people know what will happen next. Subdued, well-thought-out guitar pop is definitely not the flavor of the month these days, but who cares about fashion when it’s this good?

Jennifer Kelly

 Slow Summits — Languid Belles (Hundreds and Thousands Records)

Slow Summits come jangling out of Linköping, Sweden like the keychain on a building supervisor’s belt. Their debut EP Languid Belles presents four tracks of perfectly rendered, chiming and literate indie pop. The foursome of Anders Nyberg (vocals, rhythm guitar), Karl Sunnermalm (lead guitar, harmonica, keyboards, glockenspiel), Mattias Holmqvist Larsson(bass, keyboards, percussion) and Fredrik Svensson (Drums) enlists Amelia Fletcher (Tender Trap, Talulah Gosh, Heavenly) on backing vocals on two tracks. If these guys worship at the altar of Postcard-era Scotland their songs pay more than just homage to Orange Juice, The Pastels and international contemporaries The Go-Betweens, Beat Happening and Felt. Sunny melodies and kindly sarcastic lyrics driven by a tight and swinging rhythm section hit every serotonin and dopamine center of the musical brain. Slow Summits are the latest Scandinavian band to keep on your radar; Languid Belles is irresistible and will leave you “simply thrilled honey”  

Andrew Forell   

 The Way Ahead — Bells, Ghosts and other Saints (Clean Feed)

Peel back one layer of the Scandinavian jazz scene and you’ll find another layer. If you’ve spent much time paying attention to Cortex, Friends & Neighbors or Paal Nilssen-Love’s Large Unit, you’ll recognize most of the members of this horn-heavy, piano-free octet. André Rolighten (tenor saxophone, clarinet) and Tollef Østvang (drums) write the tunes, and as you’d surmise from a band that finds three ways to pay homage to Albert Ayler in the album name, those tunes owe a lot to his ecstatic/anguished sentimentality. But they aren’t locked into Ayler’s modes; there are also passages that have a distinctly European brass band feel, and some brusque, almost boppish moments. The band might seem ironically named if you take the title literally; this music is rooted in the 1960s, a time before most of the band’s members were born But if you recognize that name comes from an Archie Shepp session with a similar line-up, their sincerity comes into focus. These guys are just trying to blow some life into music much like the stuff that first made them want to play the kind of jazz they’re playing, and they’ve got the wind power to do it.

Bill Meyer

[burlveneer-music]

Skarbø Skulekorps - s/t - Hubro has just released the grooviest album in their catalog

Skarbø should be known to fans of Hubro from his four albums with the trio 1982 (with Nils Økland and Sigbjørn Apeland), as well as three recordings with the band Bly de Blyant (with Hilmar Jensson and Shahzad Ismaily). Others may know him more from the quartet Inland Empire (with Kris Davis, Fredrik Ljungkvist and Ole Morten Vågan) or as a former member of the Håkon Kornstad Ensemble. While Skarbø made a name for himself in jazz and free improvised music, at about 29, he acknowledged he had suppressed his love of backbeat-based music and realized he had to retrain himself. (Check out some serious timekeeping on Four Foxes.) “I started woodshedding on the drums again, and I'm still working on it.” Skarbø says. "Now I've brought the same approach to composition".

He also gives kudos to all the players who accomplished the 3-day recording schedule with two or three take performances. They cut mostly live with a few overdubs. “They are all amazing. Everyone brought a lot to the music,” he says, adding that the diverse backgrounds of the players added a lot to his project. “Sometimes when things are as written out as this, that’s not always the case.” For longtime followers of Skarbø, this collection will bear many delightful surprises. For those just becoming hip to this artist, welcome to a creative force that will captivate and enchant your musical imagination. --Robyn Flans

Signe Emmeluth: alto sax, electronics Eirik Hegdal: C Melody sax, clarinet Stian Omenås: trumpet Anja Lauvdal: organ, synth Johan Lindström: pedal steel, guitar Chris Holm: bass, synth Øyvind Skarbø: drums, percussion, vibraphone, banjo On “1-555-3327”: Vocals by Jørgen Sandvik, Ivar Chelsom Vogt, David Chelsom Vogt. Additional horns by Møhlenpris foreldrekorps. All music composed and arranged by Øyvind Skarbø (TONO).

[jazzworldquest-blog]

NORWAY: Erlend Apneseth Trio – Salika, Molika (HUBRO 2019)

International release May 2019 Folk past meets folk future in the Erlend Apneseth Trio’s new album of music, sound and spoken word, featuring accordionist Frode Haltli The third album by the trio of Erlend Apneseth - Norway’s new star of the Hardanger fiddle - builds on the foundations set by their acclaimed debut recording, ‘Det Andre Rommet’ (which was nominated for a Norwegian ‘Grammy’) and its equally praised follow-up, ‘Åra’, to create a thrillingly contemporary-sounding amalgam of old and new, mixed and co-produced once again by Jorgen Træen (Jaga Jazzist, Røyksopp, etc). Commissioned by Bergen Kjøtt, a former meat packing factory now converted to artist’s studios and performance space, and partly recorded there, ‘Salika, Molika’ combines elements from traditional folk music with experimental improvisation and electronics to produce a fascinating hybrid form where inspired acoustic picking on fiddle and baritone guitar or zither plus percussion is matched by live sampling and processing to create intricately patterned tesselations of sound. The addition of the celebrated accordionist and composer Frode Haltli - on whose masterly Hubro album of 2018, ‘Avant Folk’, Erlend Apneseth played - deepens the mix to produce a denser yet more nuanced ensemble-sound, while the incorporation of spoken word and ambient recordings - following a model first established in ‘Åra' - provides a further discursive layer to the musical text. Rather than over-egging an already rich pudding with too many ingredients, the resulting palimpsest of music, sound and spoken word comes across as entirely natural-sounding, while much of ’Salika, Molika’ positively rocks, with compulsive, middle-eastern influenced grooves riffing on minimalist ear-worm melodies and trip-hop beats. Elsewhere, eerie glissando drones, plucked strings and the accordion's wheezy sighs meet the repetitive pulse of what sounds like percussive raindrops. This is deeply rooted music, at times so ancient-sounding that it feels like it was dug up out of the ground. At other times, the effect suggests a heroically modernist, mid-twentieth century take on medieval sources, rather as if Penderecki or Ligeti were re-scoring Bergman’s ’The Seventh Seal’. ’Salika, Molika' is also very consciously structured as a kind of sonic journey, the music first emerging from - and then eventually returning to - whispers of pure sound, while in between various modes and influences are picked up and tried out. Throughout, the band - which with the addition of Haltli becomes a four-way supergroup - plays superbly. Guitarist Stephan Meidell is already a star of the Hubro catalogue with his solo album, ‘Metrics’, and as a third of the group Cakewalk; percussionist/drummer Øyvind Hegg-Lunde - who plays with Meidell in the duo Strings & Tympani - is also a member of the influential band Building Instrument.  “The project started with a commission from Bergen Kjøtt to make a concert with new music in a really big room in the old meat factory”, says Erlend Apneseth. “The idea was basically to write music, meet there for a week of rehearsals before the concert, and see how the music would develop in the room. Bringing in Frode was just that we saw this as an opportunity to work with him, all three of us being fans of what he has been doing for several years as a really top class contemporary musician.” via Blogger http://bit.ly/2IyP75G