Daniel Bernardes / Drumming GP: Liturgy of the Birds - in memoriam Olivier Messiaen (Clean Feed)

Pianist Daniel Bernardes pays homage to French composer Olivier Messiaen, augmenting his piano trio of Antonio Augusto Aguiar on bass and Mario Costa on drums with the Drumming GP Ensemble of Miquel Bernat on marimba, Jeffrey Davis & Pedro Gois on vibraphones, and Joao Dias on glockenspiel, a wonderful merging of contemporary percussive composition and modern jazz. ... Click to View

Avram Fefer Quartet (w/ Marc Ribot / Eric Revis / Chad Taylor): Testament (Clean Feed)

For this album saxophonist Avram Fefer opened his working unit by adding legendary Marc Ribot on guitar, expanding the sound of the trio with bassist Eric Revis and drummer Chad TAylor, while digging deep into North African inspired spiritual hymns with beatiful melodies mostly taken from some of this previous trio records but adding new shape and sonic explorations. ... Click to View

Gorilla Mask: Brain Drain (Clean Feed)

The 4th album from German saxophonist Peter Van Huffel's Gorilla Mask, the 3rd on Clean Feed, is another powerful blending jazz and rock forms in restless and profoundly determined music, energetic but intelligently structured, with great riffs and melodic grooves from Roland Fidezius (electric bass) and Rudi Fischerlehner (drums and percussion). ... Click to View

Gorilla Mask: Brain Drain [VINYL] (Clean Feed)

The 4th album from German saxophonist Peter Van Huffel's Gorilla Mask, the 3rd on Clean Feed, is another powerful blending jazz and rock forms in restless and profoundly determined music, energetic but intelligently structured, with great riffs and melodic grooves from Roland Fidezius (electric bass) and Rudi Fischerlehner (drums and percussion). ... Click to View

Jose Lencastre Nau Quartet: Live in Moscow (Clean Feed)

The collective free jazz Nau Quartet led by alto saxophonist Jose Lencastre with Red Trio pianist and bassist Rodrigo Pinheiro and Hernani Faustino and drummer Joao Lencastre are caught live at Moscow's DOM Cultural Center for this album of thoughtfully informed improvisation, using open and spontaneous structures as they evolve each conversation in organic ways. ... Click to View

Tim Stine Quartet: Knots (Clean Feed)

After his debut on Astral Spirits, Chicago-based guitarist Tim Stine assembled this quartet with Nick Mazzarella on saxophone, Matt Ulery on bass, and Quin Kirchner on drums, all skilled as bandleaders themselves, to realize Stine's avant compositions, precise harmonically and rhthmically interesting works with a Threadgill feel in surprising shifts of direction. ... Click to View

Kimchi Moccasin Tango (Nyberg / Bjora / Andersen): Yankee Zulu (Clean Feed)

Three active Norwegians musicians based in Oslo-- guitarist Karl Bjora (Yes Deer, Megalodon Collective), drummer Dag Erik Knedal (Saka, Akode) and saxophonist Karl-Hjalmar Nyberg (Left Exit, Megalodon Collective)--in their debut album as a performing trio, showing both assertive collective playing in a free jazz mode and deeply introspective exploration. ... Click to View

Almeida / Duynhoven / Klein: Live at the Bimhuis (Clean Feed)

This is the 2nd release of this trio on Clean Feed, with Tobias Klein (alto saxophone, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet), Goncalo Almeida (double bass) and Martin van Duynhoven (drums) captured live at Bimhuis in Amsterdam in 2017, taking on compositions by Ornette Coleman alongside original compositions in a free jazz mode from all three players. ... Click to View

Egil Kalman / Fredrik Rasten: Weaving a Fabric of Winds (Shhpuma)

Swedish bass player Egil Kalman, here on modular syntheizer, joins Norwegian guitarist Fredrik Rasten, for a lovely album of drifting electronics and beautifully entwining acoustic guitar, unhurriedly developing environments of warm, slowly evolving chord structures that show influences from players like Catherine Lamb or the Wandelweiser collective. ... Click to View

Egil Kalman / Fredrik Rasten: Weaving a Fabric of Winds [VINYL] (Shhpuma)

Swedish bass player Egil Kalman, here on modular syntheizer, joins Norwegian guitarist Fredrik Rasten, for a lovely album of drifting electronics and beautifully entwining acoustic guitar, unhurriedly developing environments of warm, slowly evolving chord structures that show influences from players like Catherine Lamb or the Wandelweiser collective. ... Click to View

John Coltrane Quartet: Impressions Graz 1962 (ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)

Taking his quartet on a European tour in the fall of 1962, his band with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on double bass, and Elvin Jones on drums performed in Graz, Austria at Stefaniensaal, the concert beautifully recorded by ORF Steiermark and here released as the first of two volumes, showing both Coltrane's lyrical origins and expanding free inclinations. ... Click to View

Louis Moholo Octet: Spirits Rejoice! [VINYL] (Otoroku)

Featuring an incredible lineup of masterful players from 1970's London creative jazz scene--Harry Miller & Johnny Dyani (bass), Keith Tippett (piano), Evan Parker (sax), Nick Evans & Radu Malfatti (trombone), and Kenny Wheeler (trumpet)--South African drummer Louis Moholo's debut album under brings both joy and spirituality to freedom and lyricism, a joyful achievement. ... Click to View

Tatsuya Nakatani : Rock Garden (Nakatani-Kobo)

Twelve percussion solos from incomparable Japanese percussionist living in Consequence, New Mexico, Tatsuya Nakatani, a dramatic presentation starting with bowed and resonant cymbals and developing into active sections of intense drumming using bowls and found objects to create complex and unique percussive environments filled with detail, mystery and excitement. ... Click to View

Tatsuya Nakatani : Rock Garden Extended [CASSETTE] (Nakatani-Kobo)

Twelve percussion solos from incomparable Japanese percussionist living in Consequence, New Mexico, Tatsuya Nakatani, a dramatic presentation starting with bowed and resonant cymbals and developing into active sections of intense drumming using bowls and found objects to create complex and unique percussive environments filled with detail, mystery and excitement. ... Click to View

Ryoko Akama / Apartment House: Dial 45-21-95 (Another Timbre)

Nine compositions from Ryoko Akama commissioned by Another Timbre while she was doing research at the Krzysztof Kieslowski archive in Poland, the scores based on fragments of notes and objects from that archive, realized here by the Apartment House ensemble as a beautiful set of floating works invoking "clouds, as shape, as light, as colour, as body, as element". ... Click to View

Jon Heilbron: Puma Court (Another Timbre)

Two compositions from Berlin-based Australian composer-instrumentalist Jon Heilbron scored for two double basses and two hardanger fiddles--violins with extra sympahetic strings-- in his two part "Puma Court", a slowly-evolving work that develops uniquely rich acoustic environments of interacting harmonies & timbres, punctuated with subtle percussive elements. ... Click to View

Frank Denyer: The Boundaries of Intimacy (Another Timbre)

A set of varied compositions from Frank Denyer, most of them of a delicate acoustic intimacy, with works for female singers & flute, two works for koto, a string quartet, one for flute and electronics and the two-part "Frog" for a bowed stringed instrument of Denyer design, the "sneh"; uncategorizable music of sublime imagination and unusual approaches. ... Click to View

Frank Denyer: The Fish That Became The Sun (Songs Of The Dispossessed) (Another Timbre)

A uniquely epic work in 14 parts by composer Frank Denyer, with a large ensemble of 40 musicians, many playing specially built instruments made from discarded materials, with other instrumentation including sitar, mandolin and hammered dulcimer, 4 male vocalists, 4 female vocalists, 4 players of adapted organ pipes, crumhorns, bowed wine glasses, 3 double basses, a contrabassoon, &c. &c. ... Click to View

Adrian Democ / Apartment House: Ziadba (Another Timbre)

London's Apartment House in a quintet configuration performs four chamber works by Slovakian composer Adrian Democ, the Czech ensemble Ostravska Band / Fama Q performs one composition, gentle music of deceptive simplicity, using color, shade and hue through unique orchestration, his works built upon creative foundations steeped in historic reference. ... Click to View

Octopus: Cyanea (Creative Sources)

A concise and essential concert from the Octopus octet, recorded in performances at O'Culto da Ajuda, in Lisbon, Portugal during the Creativefest XII, the ensemble of mostly acoustic instrumention (ello, viola, flute, clarinet, classical guitar, piano, percussion and synthesizer, carefully evolving a shade of blue in subtle details of tense restraint. ... Click to View

Toh-Kichi (Satoko Fujii / Tatsuya Yoshida): Baikamo (Libra)

The duo of Japanese improvisers, pianist Satoko Fujii and drummer Tatsuya Yoshida, continue their collaborations which includes many albums with the Satoko Fujii Quartet, their duo "Erans" record on Tzadik, and the original "Toh-Kichi" album on Victo, here in a new studio album of intricate, energetic and ebullient improvised dialogs, named for the aquatic flower "Baikamo". ... Click to View

exclusiveOr (Peter Evans / Wooley / Muncy / Olencki / Karre / Cimini / Young / Snyder / Pluta): Modules (Carrier Records)

The NY electronics duo exclusiveOr (Sam Pluta and Jeff Synder) join forces with the International Contemporary Ensemble and Architeuthis Walks on Land (Katherine Young and Amy Cimini) for this tour-de-force ensemble work, combining composed forms, electro-acoustic improvisation, noise, and lush harmonies, in a fascinatingly detailed album of creative musicianship. ... Click to View

exclusiveOr (Peter Evans / Wooley / Muncy / Olencki / Karre / Cimini / Young / Snyder / Pluta): Modules [VINYL] (Carrier Records)

The NY electronics duo exclusiveOr (Sam Pluta and Jeff Synder) join forces with the International Contemporary Ensemble and Architeuthis Walks on Land (Katherine Young and Amy Cimini) for this tour-de-force ensemble work, combining composed forms, electro-acoustic improvisation, noise, and lush harmonies, in a fascinatingly detailed album of creative musicianship. ... Click to View

Henry Cow: The Henry Cow Box Redux: The Complete Henry Cow [17 CDs, 1 DVD, 250pg Book] (Recommended Records)

The ultimate Henry Cow collection bringing together all of the 40th anniversary releases of this influential and innovative band, with all the remastered studio CDs, live CDs, Bonus CD, DVDs and booklets from each prior box, plus an additional 60 page booklet of band commentaries, pictures and other documents prepared specifically for this release, all in a sturdy & handsome box. ... Click to View

Krokofant w/ Stale Storlokken / Ingebrigt Haker Flaten: Q (Rune Grammofon)

Bassist Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten (The Thing) and Stale Storlokken (Elephant9, Supersilent, Terje Rypdal) join the Nordic Krokofant trio of Axel Skalstad on drums, vibraphone, Tom Hasslan on guitar, and Jorgen Mathisen on saxophone for the band's 3rd album, performing the 4-part work "Q", an intense and sophisticated album of complex and passionate instrumental rock. ... Click to View

Fay Victor: Barn Songs (Northern Spy)

With cellist Marika Hughes (2 Foot Yard, Anthony Braxton's Trillum) and saxophonist Darius Jones (Little Women, Darius Jones Trio), vocalist Fay Victor introduces her Fay Victor Chamber Trio, the open instrumental foundation highlighting Victor's expressive songs and insightful lyric content, developed with Victor and Jochem van Dijk; a great example of creative contemporary jazz song. ... Click to View

Brian Osborne: Decorous Novelties (Heat Retention Records)

Using metal, glass, wood, and plastic, percussionist Brian Osborne (The Gate, Hatchers) offers twelve tracks of interweaving layers of simplicity and complexity, clarity and haze, many pieces initiating with deceptive simplicity and insinuating themselves in unique ways, all performed live in the studio and presented with no overdubs or affects. ... Click to View

Radical Empathy Trio: Reality and Other Imaginary Places (ESP-Disk)

Recorded during Thollem's 2017 residency at Brooklyn's multi-discipline center Pioneer Works, the trio of Nels Cline on electric guitar and Michael Wimberly on drums apply treatments, alterations and processes to acoustic-electro improv, their unusual approach often inviting the listener to discover organization under a wonderful commotion of sound. ... Click to View

Hands To (Jeph Jerman): Scrine (Notice Recordings)

Sound explorer and composer Jeph Jerman created the 11 pieces on this release while living in the Knob Hill neighborhood of Colorado Springs, using unusual recording techniques he refers to as "guerrilla recordings" like tossing tape decks off buildings or putting them inside running clothes dryers, inching tape manually over the heads, exploiting creative field recordings, &c. &c. ... Click to View

Chik White / Xuan Ye: Breath Fractals (Notice Recordings)

Chik White (Darcy Spidle of rural Nova Scotia) uses a jaw harp, and Xuan Ye (Toronto) uses voice, percussion and field recordings, in this series of rich, peculiar, startling and altogether satisfying recordings that investigate a variety of approaches to their instruments, taking them to the fringes but bringing the listener along with them; oddly entertaining. ... Click to View