French label WV Sorcerer Productions 巫唱片 offers up a quiet, pulsating drone album from American-Taiwanese-Chinese composer Li Daiguo. As far as experimental music goes, this is dark and foreboding in a far more organized way that what I’m used to hearing. Quite a fine effort.
I cannot think of any genre of music percussionist and composer Joseph Benzola doesn’t sound comfortable working in. There might be some bizarre concoction lying dormant in the underground somewhere, but it’s not worth wasting one’s time thinking much about.
This collection puts together what sounds something similar to Balinese percussion on the first track, Improv 24 November 2019, and then smoothly transitions to atonal piano music, then some improvisational music, and so on. The variation of styles, and how well everything meshes together, is impressive.
Hints of Alban Berg, Sun Ra, jazz played at a bar over a scotch (well, I’m thirsty, what can I say?) and a bunch of chaps having a banger on some Indonesian paradise all color this album.
This release by Ah-Q Jazz Arkestra is a joint Chinese-American project. The back story is rather interesting. From the Bandcamp website:
In early 2020, we found ourselves separated and stuck at home. Even though four of us were in Beijing, COVID19 control measures prevented us from meeting face to face. And David was much further away (in Israel, then New York and eventually Oklahoma) and unable to return to Beijing.Like much of the world, we resorted to frequent video chats and text messages to stay in touch, but as time went on, we felt we needed a better way of expressing the musical collaboration and kinship at the heart of the Ah-Q Jazz Arkestra. And for that we needed to get creative.
That’s how, after a few false starts and trials, we launched the Letters from Afar project, an exchange of musical “letters” that captured, in a somewhat different time and space, the playful back-and-forth of jazz improvisation.
This “correspondence” took place over a three-month period, from August to October 2020, lifting our spirits throughout these difficult times with the powerful language of jazz improvisation.
We hope you’ll find our musical musings to be as uplifting as we did.
Credits
released December 31, 2020David Moser 莫大伟 – keyboards (recorded in Oklahoma)
Liu Xiaoguang 刘晓光 – tenor saxophone
Matt Roberts 饶猛志 – trombone
Da Zhong 大中 – bass
Scott Silverman 司马恺 – drums
Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje is perhaps the most important active composer in Norway’s experimental music scene. The Trondheim native not only works with avant-garde music, but with contemporary classical, choral, experimental, electronic and even rock music.
She provides a new release which clocks in about 30 minutes of vocal improvisation which goes from quiet blips and boops to what sounds like harrowing growling and shreiks (yes, it works perfectly within the context of this music), textured with loops and the sorts of soundscapes Ratkje is known for. The release is a documentation of her virtual performance at the TUSK Virtual Festival in 2020.
It is unfortunate that we have to live with the reality of not being able to attend such concerts for a while, but composers are a very creative bunch, and their music won’t be silenced.
Ángel Ontalva is something like a paisano to me; a fellow of Spanish descent who spends an extraordinary time in Russia, and who has integrated himself into local scenes across the country. Guitarist Ontalva has released a single which is a mellow pastiche of progressive rock, world music and jazz. As this is a free track, and of high quality, it’s worth your time to explore.