Jeff Gburek returns to these pages presenting an album featuring himself improvising on his mandolin. The album is sparse and very well recorded. The clarity really helps one to focus on the sounds emanating from his weapon of choice. Think of a mix between experimental music, jazz, a horror soundtrack, and your friend musing.
Amor Celestial is the latest album by Bay Area guitar improviser Ernesto Diaz-Infante, release on Rambutan Records out of New York. The album reminds me of waves gently crashing into the rock of the Pacific Coastline, ebbing and flowing as clouds of feedback surround each bend of the strings. From the release’s Bandcamp site: “San Francisco-based Ernesto Diaz-Infante brings his complete mastery and open exploration of the electric guitar to Tape Drift. It’s an honor to present this deeply focused and heavy work from someone who has dedicated so many years to fearless sonic experimentation and improvisation. The cover art…
Today is a workday for us in Beijing, so there is no review today, but I did want to point you to an Indonesian band called Senyawa, who is featured on Rafaelle Pezzella’s incredible Unexplained Sounds Group‘s digipak retrospective called the Far East Music Collection. It is a reissue of three seminal compilations covering experimental music from China, Indonesia and the Far East in general. The set looks gorgeous, and Senyawa‘s contribution is mind-blowing.
Thanks to the ever-consistent Muteant Records for bringing this album to my attention! I’m familiar with both Michel Kristof and Makoto Sato’s work, as both as masters in the improv world, but Quentin Rollet is a new name for me. His sax playing and sound manipulation are expertly underpinned by the aforementioned Kristof and Sato, making this a bouncy and adventurous listen. Quentin Rollet : sopranino and alto saxes, Korg Monotron Delay, iPhone, SmarFaust App Michel Kristof : electric guitard, Sfx, cowbells Makoto Sato : drums
Saadet Türköz is an international treasure. Born to Kazakh and Turkish parents in Istanbul in 1961, she has developed a style that comfortably blends Central Asian traditional music with free jazz. A very pleasant listen.
A very pleasant release from Mohammad Syfkhan, a Kurdish musician currently based in Ireland. From the Nyaah Records Bandcamp site: “Mohammad’s own brand of ecstatic music takes elements from Middle Eastern and North African music to create an atmosphere of joy, love and happiness. The songs on ‘I am Kurdish’ have been recorded and mixed with the view to make them to suitable for listening to at a small get together or to be played on a big rig at night clubs. Either way, it is a record that will make people dance.”
La Montaña Rusa 49.2023. Kurt Rosenwinkel. Borderlands Trio. Tomasz Stańko Quintet. Jovan Milovanović Quartet. Greg Spero. Today there will be no reviews as we are having to prepare for Christmas at the school and time is limited, so I share with you the ever-wonderful La Montaña Rusa podcast and a broadcast of some fine jazz and improvised music. Enjoy yourselves this evening!
With the exception of Christian Vander, I cannot think of too many people whose name would be so heavily associated with zeuhl and avant-progressive rock in general than Guy Segers. The former bassist of the legendary Univers Zero has collected some of the finest names in avant and progressive rock to make an album loaded with wildly improvised music. It’s an astounding, challenging release – one which no listener would ever get bored of. Kudos to Discus Music for releasing this gem. The list of musicians should be enough to entice even the newest of zeuhl fans: Julie TIPPETTS (Vocals)…
Serbian-Hungarian multi-instrumentalist and composer Szilárd Mezei is perhaps the most adventurous musician coming out of Hungary these days, and that’s saying a lot, considering the great quality of improvisers who have come from that country (think of the legendary A.E. Bizottság, for example). This is a trio album from 2008 where he plays viola while Ernő Hock handles the double bass and István Csík plays drums. Unique.
Jeff Gburek’s recent instrumental guitar album is a a wonderfully disjointed trip around his sonic weapon of choice. It’s a truly wild work, but Jeff weaves his vast musical influences together with hints of a broken kind of blues, free jazz, improvisational skronk and psychedelic rock. In Jeff’s words, which you can read in full at Ramble Records‘ Bandcamp site: “In attempting to move into the future of the guitar or the post-guitar (as in the case of Kevin Drumm or Annette Krebs where the guitar became deconstructed and/or displaced into other electro-acoustic processes, if you will), I also discovered aspects…