Fellow giromondo Jeff Gburek offers another incredibly profound album, balancing perfectly his own signature experimental sound touched with folk and blues, with the spirits of Robbie Basho and John Fahey once again coming along for the ride.
For the influence behind this album, please consider taking the time to read his liner notes at the release page here.
Worlds Within Worlds in an Australian record label releasing music from Iran, Afghanistan and India. This album features rubab (or rebab) player Nasim Khushnawaz. From the label’s Bandcamp site:
“As a master of the Afghan rubab, Nasim Kushnawaz hails from one of the most important musical lineages in Afghanistan. The son of Herati rubab maestro Ustad Rahim Khuhsnawaz, Nasim resides in exile in Iran, wherein he continues a four-generation tradition of performing exemplary Afghan, Khorasani and Herati playing techniques. Listeners will easily notice his keen ear for tempo and feeling as he sets up unexpected twists and turns throughout his music, making each segment more emotive and unpredictable than the last.”
Duncan Blachford is an Australian intuitive musician who delivers a gentle track of piano improvisation. Not bad at all for a non-pianist, I must say, as the track held my attention for its entirety.
The Dirty Three are Mick Turner, Jm White and Warren Ellis, and between them, they have worked with a who’s who of alternative music like P.J. Harvey, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and Nick Cave among others. What’s most impressive about their sound, however, is that they can sew together angular post-rock with a charming, nearly folkish sound. This is the band’s best album in my estimation, and that’s saying a lot considering the quality of their work, but please do give it a listen and enjoy one of Australia’s finest instrumental bands.
John Wall is Australia’s foremost experimental music composer. I had lost track of him many years ago, but it’s good to see that he is still composing bold music. From his Bandcamp site:
“As with the previous Computer-Piano release these three compositions consist of piano recordings (that are not subject to any computer manipulations) and computer manufactured sounds that were built around the (analogue) piano of [Computer]-[Piano] part II and [Computer]-[Piano] part II Variation 1.
The objective (as before with Computer-Piano ) was to create a work that combined the analogue and digital into an aesthetically convincing structured work.
The solo piano piece is included because I felt its “shaping”, duration and contrasting nature worked well with the two more intense pieces.”
The first thing that came into my mind hearing The Traffic was that they have mastered the psych-soul formula to a tee. The first track, Fire, is a Jimi Hendrix cover where the flute takes the place of Hendrix’s legendary guitar playing, and it sounds damn solid. The second track, Bangarang, sounds like something that would have fit in well with a hip Blaxploitation soundtrack, with a heavy funk element to the track.
Freyja Garbett, a Berklee graduate has made a remarkably innovative album. From her Bandcamp website:
“Garbett’s heady compositions draws influence from a vast range of styles and musicians. A graduate of the Berklee College of Music, she lists pianists and composers such as Fred Hersch, Gerald Clayton and Maria Schneider as critical influences to her music, along with the likes of Flying Lotus, J Dilla and Snarky Puppy.
“The pieces from my debut album are an exploration of an electro-acoustic approach to jazz composition and improvisation,” begins Garbett. “These compositions are springboards for improvisation and creativity. An added element to my approach is that all of the musicians can manipulate their instrument’s sound drastically – the arrangements of the pieces can be expanded on, therefore creating ambient textures of the studio produced music that I listen to. On stage, we have the facility to offer audiences a fiery multi-dimensional performance.”
Previously sharing both performances and recordings with artists in the New York and Boston scenes – including Dave Fiuczynski’s Planet MicroJam, Garbett’s recent accolades include a commission by SIMA and APRA AMCOS to compose and perform with the Sydney Women’s Jazz Collective at the 2017 Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival.”
For an album laden with hip-hop and nu-jazz, this was a joy to hear.
Freyja Garbett – piano/rhodes/organ/synths
Felix Lalanne – Guitar
Simon Ferenci – Trumpet
Nish Manjunath – Tenor saxophone
Michael Avgenicos – Tenor saxophone
Jacques Emery – Electric and double bass
Alexander Inman- Islop – Drums
Jesse Ciampa – Percussion
Erin Badman (Esmé) – vocals
George Thomas (Ltl Gzeus) – vocals
Puscha is an Australian sound designer and film composer who hails from Australia and his music ranges from deep, cinematic ambient dub to cold, icy minimal techno. I’ve been out of the techno world far too long, as this release is astounding, and it’s making me wonder what else I’m missing these days.
The beats remind me of something like Cinematic Orchestra and Monolake colliding. As both are legends of electronic music, Puscha is using some fine reference points to create his music.
Australian jazz continues to impress! To my ears, Delay 45 combine a tinge of Chet Baker and early trumpet-laden Durutti Column with the improvising abilities of fellow Aussies The Necks, and the results make for a free fluid, and even somewhat sensual experience. This will be seen as a classic in the genre in the next few years.
I was going through a tag titled “Australian jazz” on my free time this week and came across this stunner of an album by Andrea Keller & Wave Riders.
From her Bandcamp site:
Systems Over-Ride is the new album from Melbourne-based pianist & composer Andrea Keller, featuring her latest musical venture, WAVE RIDERS. The quintet performs Andrea’s music with grit and spontaneity; bringing together her somewhat disparate fascinations of free jazz and doom metal, combined with potent harmonies and yearning melodies. Dichotomous relationships abound as she grapples to reconcile the brutal and the beautiful, all the while focussed on stripping back, and connecting, within acts of kindness, and solidarity.
Recorded between lockdowns 4 & 5 at Head Gap Studio in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, the album also features a set of specially commissioned remixes. Using improvised fragments from the studio session, Nicole Lizée (CAN), Bree van Reyk (SYD), Joe Talia, Philip Rex, and Theo Carbo (MEL) contribute an exhilarating set of pieces that draw threads from WAVE RIDERS and weave them into new territory and sound worlds.
Anyone who is brave enough to mix doom metal and jazz together is quite okay in my book.