Album Review: Maud The Moth – The Distaff : a dramatic, intense avant-rock statement.
Celestial, ethereal, bestial and brutal, woven with beauty and darker mysteries, you need a tapestry of adjectives to describe the music of Maud the moth. The project of Spanish-born / Scotland-based pianist and singer-songwriter Amaya López-Carromero, each Maud the moth album has been unapologetically ambitious but not at the expense of authenticity. Following her debut …
Album Review: Dowdelin –‘Tchenbé!’: Lyon-based Beats and Creole-soul fusionists groove deeper.
It all started when fusion-centric producer/musician David Kiledjian met Martinican singer Olivya Victorin with the notion of sculpting something different, maybe some creole-voiced, beats-informed nu soul and the result… Dowdelin. Now two albums and a couple of EPs along the road comes their third LP ‘Tchenbé!’ (on Underdog Records) and signs of a subtle shift …
Album Review: Marton Juhasz-‘Metropolis’: Jazz rock re-imagined and re-vitalised.
Of all new European jazz, the Hungarian scene is the one that just keeps on delivering surprises. The psychedelic beats of Jazzbois’, Mörk’s silky assured nu-soul flavours and Àbáse’s far reaching cosmic expeditions all edged into the consciousness last year. Now comes someone new knocking at the gates with Basel-based drummer and composer Marton Juhasz …
Album Review: Jupiter & Okwess –‘Ekoya’: The Irrepressible Congolese band deliver a scorching return.
Formed in 1990 by Jupiter Bokondji from within the buzzing Congolese street music scene, Jupiter & Okwess have always been an irrepressible band. From early success across Africa to serious derailment by five years of ravaging civil war, then a breakthrough feature in the ‘Jupiter Rising’ documentary on Kinshasa lo-fi, Jupiter & Okwess have always …
Album Review: Peace Flag Ensemble – ‘Everything Is Possible’: sublime and intimate jazz-toned portraits from the Saskatchewan sextet.
Saskatchewan sound sculptors Peace Flag Ensemble are a band who always seem to go about things quietly. No Fanfares, no bombast, a musical collective whose fluent jazz-toned, post rock dynamics thrum with soft power. They aim for an intimate impact. Their shimmering debut ‘Noteland’ from 2019, balanced ambience and improvisation exquisitely, conjuring up justified Keith …
Album Review: Matters Unknown – ‘Silhouettes: A Dream Sphere Journal’ EP’: enriching nu-jazz, poignant and powerful.
Trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Enser is possibly best known as a key member of pioneering global beat collective Nubiyan Twist but away from that thriving collective he’s sculpting his own singular musical reputation. A couple of years ago, under the MATTERS UNKNOWN banner, he released the ambitious, widescreen ‘We Aren’t Just’ album. The recording underlined …
Album Review: Red Gazelle Trio – ‘On A Human Level’: naturally soulful and melodically warm, a new Nordic jazz gem.
Perceptions and pronouncements about Nordic Jazz can often return to parts of the classic ECM catalogue with its sophisticated coolness, ambient leanings and breathtaking spaciousness. But naturally, the Scandinavian scene is so vibrant that the music’s boundaries are forever shifting, on the reach for new horizons. Over the last couple of decades, ever since the …
Album Review: Lawrence English – ‘Even The Horizon Knows Its Bounds’: evocative electronic music which engulfs and surrounds.
Considering theorist, writer, artist, curator and composer Lawrence English’s creative output over the last two decades, the phrase ‘a body of work’ inevitably looms. It’s a descriptor that generally feels over-used, with its own pretentions and hint of fawning respect, but for this singular experimental, electronic musician the image does ring true. The ever- evolving …
Album Review: Être Ensemble – ‘Sans Toi’: Joni Void’s leftfield collective take a looping, twitchy, journey of despair and beauty
Jean Néant aka Joni Void, sonic collagist, producer and beat-maker may be most visible as the persona responsible for three singular Constellation albums (‘Selfless‘, ‘Miss En Abyme’ and 2023’s ‘Everyday Is The Song’), but running parallel is their enablement of collective musical invention around Montreal and beyond. Être Ensemble is one of those partner projects. …
Album Review: Lophae – ‘Perfect Strangers’: thrilling, fine-tuned jazz with subtle powers.
There’s a playful irony in both the band and album names chosen by this new London jazz quartet led by guitarist/composer Greg Sanders. For a start this lush, intricately woven set of tunes played with finesse, vibrancy and uncanny sensitivity is anything but ‘lo-fi’. Perhaps the ‘Lophae’ just hints at Sanders’ move away from the …